


My Constant, My Touchstone

by doyouthinkimspooky



Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith, The X-Files
Genre: Alien Abduction, Alternate Universe - 1990s, Angst and Feels, Angst and More Angst, Carol as Scully, Denial of Feelings, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Torture, Outer Space, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Road Trips, Slow Burn, Songfic, The Truth is Out There, Therese as Mulder, Therese is a total lumberjane, Upstate New York
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 18:35:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 44,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8295916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doyouthinkimspooky/pseuds/doyouthinkimspooky
Summary: Carol is stuck in bumbleland, upstate NY. Therese finds her and offers assistance. They realize that the answers aren't in the sky or on the ground, but somewhere in the middle. Modernish AU, full of X-Files vibes and feels. Slowburn, but not quite as long as Chris Carter takes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a first draft, so I may go back periodically to make revisions/edits. I will include history of changes in notes for each chapter.
> 
> Listen to this Spotify playlist for even more MSR/Harold They're Lesbians feels: https://open.spotify.com/user/bad_bl00d/playlist/4rmAbwV4YhL6B67NKx4iKM

It wasn’t everyday that Carol met someone who was quite utterly _flung out of space_. In fact, this was the first time she’d ever done so.

“Um, excuse me? Ma’am? Do you need any help?”

The young woman who had just called Carol a _ma’am_ parked her ‘90s Jeep Wrangler up behind the broken-down upscale Cadillac.

“I’m — Don’t call me that,” Carol said.

“Oh. I’m sorry. What’s your name, then?”

The older woman brushed away a few of her blonde curls and inhaled sharply on her cigarette.

“Carol,” she said. “And you?”

The younger woman took in Carol’s features before responding. Her blonde, curly hair, string of pearls around her neck, and sharp red lipstick all seemed too elegant for someone driving alone through upstate New York at 6 o’clock in the evening.

Taking another drag of her cigarette, Carol pressed: “Well?”

“Hm? Oh, sorry. I’m Therese. Therese Belivet.”

“Therese Belivet,” Carol said. She drew out the syllables.

“Yes.”

Therese looked a curious doe, with a hint of squirrelly, frantic energy just below the surface. It released in small bursts to fill the silence around strangers, like now.

“It’s Czech, originally. It’s —”

“It’s very original,” Carol said, “I like it.”

Carol lifted the hood of the car and propped it open to stay.

“I don’t suppose you know anything about Cadillacs?”

Therese shook her head.

“My friend Danny knows more about cars, but he’s out of town this week. Well, actually, he knows about a lot of things.”

“Do you?” Carol said.

She took a few steps closer to Therese. Her high heels clicked against the asphalt. Carol was dressed wildly inappropriate for this woodsy, tiny town — population: 100, give or take a few people. With a seafoam green dress and matching shoes that would be more appropriate for a nice dinner and a Broadway show, Carol seemed more alien than human. But the same could be said of Therese: what was this fragile creature with bones like a bird’s doing living in such a rugged, horrible place? With her orange-toned flannel top, denim knee-long shorts, and white bandanna, this matchstick girl couldn’t possibly chop firewood or hunt her food. Yet here they both were, as alien to the environment as they were right now to each other.

“I do, actually,” Therese said.

“Oh, really? And how’s this?”

“Oh, I read. Too much, probably. And obviously not the right sorts of things, because I haven’t got a clue what might be wrong with your car.”

Therese leaned her back against the side of the car, dug her hands in her pants pockets. A breeze, ever so slight, untucked a small piece of her brown hair. She bit the corner of her lip and pushed the hair back into place, entirely unaware that Carol was watching her with questioning eyes. Carol stubbed out her cigarette against the car and placed her free hand on her hip. She waited for Therese to speak again, as she already knew the girl would.

“If you want, though, I would be more than happy to give you a ride somewhere. I don’t know where you were heading, but—”

“What a strange girl you are,” Carol said.

Therese fidgeted with the knot at the bottom of her shirt that held the extra fabric out of her way while outdoors.

“Why’s that?”

Carol barely shook her head, and Therese swore she saw a hint of a smile.

“Flung out of a space.”

 

~~~~~~

“I suppose there isn’t a chance of me catching a tow truck at this hour?”

“I’m afraid not. You would be better off leaving it here until the morning. They charge at least double past 5, because they know people are usually only passing through here.”

The pair were in Therese’s red Wrangler. Carol had originally wanted to be taken to a diner to get a bite to eat and phone Abby, but —

“The diner’s not really close to any hotels or anything like that. You’d have to walk from there and—”

“I know, I know,” Carol said, “It’s better to wait until morning.”

“Pretty much. I’m sorry that this has happened to you, Carol.”

 _Carol_. It tasted like genuine, grade B maple syrup in Therese’s mouth. Thick, refined, and full of sugar. She wanted to say her name again, but couldn’t think of anything coherent to attach to the declaration. Instead, she turned the volume on her stereo higher to fill the silence. Oh, God, anything to fill the silence.

_I’ll stop the world and melt with you_

_You’ve seen the difference and it’s getting better all the time_

_There’s nothing you and I won’t do_

_I’ll stop the world and melt with you_

_The future’s open wide…_

A brief pause between track changes.

“You like that song, don’t you?” Carol said.

Therese turned the volume down even though the next song hadn’t started yet. Carol continued faster than Therese could sort out what to say next:

“I noticed you were tapping your fingertips on the steering wheel. What do you like about it? Mind if I…?” Carol had taken another cigarette out and waited before lighting it.

“No, go ahead,” Therese said, “I guess it’s that when I listen to it, I close my eyes, and I… it feels so… it’s kind of like everything melts away. What I mean, actually, is that the rhythm of the instruments, it excites but soothes me at the same time. Sorry. This doesn’t make any sense.”

Carol smiled a sly smile. Therese caught it, then doubled-down on her focus on the road instead.

“Would you rather listen to something else?” she said.

“No, no, I quite enjoy this,” Carol said, and took a drag from the cigarette.

Therese kept the volume turned down for the rest of the car ride. She could give presentations on her research with ease, but human life unnerved her, especially the human life sitting in the front seat next to her. Speaking in public was like spotting Polaris; easy and with a purpose. You couldn’t find the Big Dipper or Ursa Minor without a guiding star as a starting point. You couldn’t give a speech without a purpose and a guiding light, either. But people? _People_. How was anyone to know when the small talk was over and the real talk began, or if it was always ‘real talk,’ or it was always and forever going to be small talk?

Carol played with the idea of asking Therese what she was thinking about. But if she reads a lot, _too much, actually_ , then she probably thinks about a lot of things and too much, too. Poor dear. The world isn’t quite so scary, Therese. Well…

“This is it,” Therese said, “Home sweet home, I guess.”

They had pulled up to a small, single-story home that resided off a dirt path without a street sign. Wood and woods surrounded the place; under a small metal overhang that Carol figured designated an outdoor garage of sorts, a stack of firewood rested, and large evergreens dwarfed the house. They exited the car and started to walk towards the front door, but a dusty black and white cat darted up to Carol, frightening her.

“Hey, come here, Spooky,” Therese said, and snapped her fingers.

The cat, with his two black round spots over his eyes and muzzle, looked like a fluffy ghost. A perfect fit for his namesake. He ran up to Therese at her call and rubbed against her legs a few times, then flopped down at her feet and rolled around in the dirt.

“Baby,” Therese said. She elongated the first syllable.

Carol watched Therese scratch Spooky’s belly. She didn’t mind feeling invisible in this moment. It wasn’t the way Harge made her feel invisible. Therese was like a skittish Snow White, absorbed with animals and places, not people. Carol felt as if she were watching a mother playing with her baby’s belly and this warmed her unexpectedly.

“I’m sorry. I should have asked if you were allergic to cats first,” Therese said.

She stood up. Spooky had his fill of affection and greetings, and ran off back into the dusk.

“Or if you even like cats,” she added.

“It’s okay,” Carol said, then repeated. She knew Therese sometimes needed to hear reassurances twice. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew.

Therese smiled, revealing dimples.

“He mostly lives outside. But he knows that this is always his home, anytime he needs to come back. He knows he’ll always be loved and taken care of.”

Carol’s gray eyes clouded over some, for they lost their characteristic shimmer in that brief moment.

“Are you okay?” Therese said.

“Hm? Yes, I’m fine,” Carol said.

Therese cast her own green eyes at her feet. The silence tasted like acid, like bile and the afterburn of a fire cast against the back of the throat. She swallowed hard to try and wash it away, but the salt made it sting, too. Silences stretched for eternities, even though Therese knew they really only lasted seconds and fractions thereof. Therese knew a lot that ran contrary to how her body felt things, experienced things. It was difficult to reconcile.

“Carol?”

“Yes?”

“I want to — I mean, I wanna know things. About you. But I’m not sure you want that.”

She drew in a deep breath, then Carol said, “Ask me things. Please.”

But Therese didn’t know what to ask Carol. Didn’t know how to formulate feelings into words — the story of her life, it seemed. So instead, she simply reached out her hand for Carol’s, tentative like a cat. Carol accepted the hand in hers, and gave it a quick squeeze. This was all they could manage for right now, but they both understood more than either could articulate. And this silence, too, stretched for an eternity.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10/16/16: Chapter may be unfinished. Unsure for right now.

The women stepped inside the house. Carol expected to see rifles and the heads of Therese’s past kills, even though at this point she knew Therese was probably too gentle to hunt whatever roamed outside in the forest that was, well, just a little too close for comfort. Neither of those things were on display anywhere; instead, several paintings of the cosmos hung on the wooden backboards, reminiscent of a late ‘60s or ‘70s choice in wall covering. There were also some scientific-looking instruments in view: a telescope, two globes (one of the Earth with its oceans and continents, and the other a star globe of constellations visible in each hemisphere), charts and maps with dots and Xs plotted on them, an unusual number of compasses for one person (Carol counted at least four, and they all looked different), and some other things Carol couldn’t be sure of. Even though they were inside, it felt earthy, too. The colors were natural, wooden, organic. For someone with her head in the clouds, her house certainly appeared grounded.

  
“Do you want anything to eat or drink?” Therese said.

  
She stood in the archway that connected the living room to the kitchen.

  
“Yes,” Carol said. “Something cold to drink. Please.”

  
“D’you like beer?”

  
Carol smiled and said, “Yes, I do. Or whiskey, if you have it.”

  
Therese showed her dimples. She turned around and disappeared into the kitchen. Carol continued to examine Therese’s abode: she wandered over to the window on her right and peeked out. She couldn’t see very well with the living room light on and the sun steadily setting, but she tried to imagine herself as Therese, and how Therese must feel when she looks out these windows in this house. To gain peace from isolation, or so it seems — what a curious way to live.

  
“See anything you like?” Therese said.

  
Carol took the glass of whiskey from Therese and laughed just a small laugh.

  
“What do you do out here?”

  
“What do you mean?” Therese said. She took a sip of beer.

  
“I mean, why do you live so far away from everyone and everything. Isn’t it lonesome?”

  
“No, not really. I have to live here for my work. I can’t see the stars very well if I live where there’s a lot of people. Besides…”

  
Carol turned away from the window and faced Therese, but the young woman wasn’t returning the gaze.

  
“Besides?”

  
Therese swallowed forcefully. She didn’t, couldn’t, respond.

  
“People are difficult for you,” Carol said, “It’s easier to look up for answers than to look down where you are.”

  
“Yes,” Therese said.

  
She took a large swig of her beer in the hopes that Carol would continue to fill the silence, and also that the cold beer would cool her insides down. Therese hated knowing she was blushing after others could see it on her face already.

  
“You dream. What do you dream about?”

  
Carol begun to swirl the ice cubes in her drink, and at her question, Therese illuminated.

  
“Of all sorts of things. Of what might be out there. Of _who_ might be out there.”

  
The radiance in her green eyes was something Carol wanted to learn how to pull out of Therese purposely. She thought she already was figuring out how. This girl, of course she would always have her head tilted towards the sky —

  
“Flung out of space,” Carol whispered.

  
Either Therese had not heard, or was too enraptured in her passion to stop:

  
“So many people think that we’re the only intelligent life out there. But that’s statistically highly unlikely, I mean, there’s more stars and planets orbiting those stars than grains of sand on a beach. And not one other planet out there has some form of life that also looks up at the sky and wonders if they’re all alone in the cosmos, too? You know?”

  
“What if they’re hostile, though?” Carol said.

  
“But what if they aren’t? What if they just want to know they’re not the only ones going through this — however they might experience it — thing called life?”

  
Carol walked away from Therese and the window, and downed the rest of her whiskey.

  
“You can’t even find that on this planet, really, to be honest,” she said.

  
Therese followed Carol to the other side of the living room. Carol didn’t acknowledge it until Therese placed a ginger hand on her shoulder.

  
“Is it because you’ve never found it, or because you did and you don’t have it anymore?” she said.

  
“What?”

  
Spooked, Therese withdrew her hand from Carol’s shoulder.

  
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked, that was—”

  
“No. You’re right. I had it and lost it. But I don’t believe I ever really had it, though, to begin with. My husband and I are getting divorced. I was on my way to his family’s dinner party tonight when the car broke down.”

  
“Oh! Should I take—”

  
Carol laughed.

  
“Absolutely not. I much prefer this, actually.”

  
“But won’t he worry after you?”

  
“Let him. It would be the first time in a long time he showed any sort of concern about me.”

  
Therese drank a little more of her beer.

  
“Show me the rest of your house,” Carol said.

  
“Okay,” Therese said, softly.

  
They entered the kitchen first, the most nearby room. The walls were a typical cream color, and they displayed some photos, as did the refrigerator. The photographs looked artistic — comprised mostly of places and of animals Carol presumed appeared in the area. They were all developed in black and white, and were visibly self-processed, rather than digital. Evergreens stole the show in more than a few, with the angle titled upwards, looking at the sky. Carol placed a gentle finger on the edge of one that particularly entranced her, a photo of the innards of a forest, seemly taken upon a large cliff, with sheets of snow and ice hanging over the edges of rocks. The waterfall was frozen stiff, both in time unmoving, and on film. In the distance there appeared to be some sort of abandoned building, perhaps a former water mill.

  
“This is beautiful,” Carol whispered, “You’re a photographer, too?”

  
“Yes. Thank you. Danny says I ought to be more interested in humans, though.”

  
“Show me more of the house,” Carol said.

  
They walked to the den, where a cherry oak desk was stacked to the brim with textbooks and reference material about astronomy and physics. More charts were piled around the room in various locations, and there were books in the tall bookcase. Some of these books were photography references; techniques for shooting or developing, using effects to alter the images pre- and post-develop, and composition manuals. The walls had the same wooden backboard as the living room did, and the lighting in this room was dimmer, a softer glow. On the armchair, there was what looked like a photo album. Carol leaned to pick it up, but Therese gripped her upper arm.

  
“No, please don’t. Those aren’t my good photos. I don’t like anyone to see them,” she said.

  
Carol ran a few fingers through her curls.

  
“Hm. Will you show me someday?”

  
Therese hesitated. For an artist to show unfinished, unpolished, or ‘less than perfect’ work to another was an embarrassment of skill, not to mention incredibly vulnerable and bare.

  
“I suppose so,” Therese said softly.

  
The women traveled to the back of the house, where Therese’s room occupied one side of the hallway, and a guest room on the other. Squarely in front of was the bathroom. It was decorated in steel grays and more woodlike appearances, as well as dark brown wicker baskets. The shower curtain was of the Northern Lights in Iceland.

  
“Have you ever seen them before? In person, I mean?” Carol said.

  
“No, not yet. I would love to someday, though.”

  
“You will.”

  
Therese tilted her head slightly.

  
“How can you be so sure?”

  
“I am sure,” Carol said, with a gentle smile.

  
The guest bedroom was small, but cozy. There was the bed and another armchair, and the curtains had flowers Therese didn’t recognize on them. There was also a simple piano against the wall.

  
“Do you play?” Therese said.

  
“Me? I haven’t got a musical bone in my body, I’m afraid. Do you?”

  
“A little.”

  
“Play something,” Carol said. She sat in the armchair and gestured to the piano.

  
“Oh, but I don’t know what to play.”

  
“Play anything. I love the sound of classical music.”

  
Therese sat down at the bench and studied the keys for a moment, before closing her eyes and inhaling deeply. She placed her delicate fingers on the right keys and began to play, opening her eyes. Carol recognized the song: Erik Satie’s Gymnopedie No. 1 - Lent et douloureux. Slow and painful. Carol closed her eyes, gave them a tight but brief squeeze, then rose from the chair. Therese noticed this but tried to focus more on the song. She began making mistakes when she felt Carol’s hands resting on her the crooks of her shoulders.

  
“That’s lovely,” Carol breathed.

  
When Therese finished the song, she twisted to look at Carol, still behind her with her hands on Therese. The silence was unbearable, yet neither could look away. They didn’t know what would happen next, but this somehow frightening feeling was pleasant, too. Therese broke the silence after ages.

  
“Do you want to listen to some records? Or maybe a CD?”

  
Carol squeezed Therese’s shoulder.

  
“Yes. Yes I would.”

~~~~~~

Therese led Carol by the hand into the ‘backyard.’ All of the wilderness was Therese’s backyard. She sensed apprehension in her companion and did not stray her far from the house.

  
“It’s okay,” Therese said, “I know the woods. I promise you will be okay.”

  
It was night and the stars were abound. Therese put an earbud in one of her ears and offered the other to Carol.

  
“What are we going to listen to?” Carol said.

  
“Life. The meaning of it. Not just what it means to be human, but what it means to live,” Therese said.

  
Carol gave her a look.

  
“Trust me,” Therese said, “and look up when the music starts playing.”

  
She turned on the CD player. Strange, high-pitched melodies flowed out at first, then perhaps a few stringed instruments, before switching over to a harmony of strings, slow piano, and synthesized snippets of indeterminate sounds. It was soothing and saddening at the same time; energizing and exhausting simultaneously. Carol followed Therese’s advice and gazed at the stars while listening to the song. She felt overwhelmed by what, she didn’t know, but it was a feeling she couldn’t recall experiencing in a long time, if ever. Once, she stole a glance at Therese: the young woman had her eyes closed, a blissful smile upon her face, her arms slightly stretched out at an angle not quite behind her, but not quite at her sides, either, but a mix of the two. Her head was titled back. She was feeling the music. She did this often, Carol knew. And she didn’t know how she knew these things about the woman she had only known as a stranger hours before, but she knew them all the same, just like Therese knew her and knew what it meant to be alive. Carol hadn’t realized how dark and starless her sky had been until she met Therese. But how to navigate this new territory? Therese seemed unsure, too.

  
The song ended, and Therese took her earbud out. Carol did the same.

  
“What was that beautiful song?”

  
“I can’t pronounce the title. It’s Icelandic. But the artist is Sigur Ros. This song is what it feels like to exist, to me. To look up at the sky and want to explore it, but knowing I can’t because technology doesn’t allow us to travel fast enough yet to go very far. To look up at the sky and somehow know that there’s someone out there doing the same, in whatever way their culture has taught them to think about the experience of living.”

  
“Therese?”

  
“Yes, Carol?”

  
The sugary maple syrup in her mouth again, no, maple syrup can sometimes taste bitter, too. Honey. Honey and a cup of warm tea in the morning after a night of restful sleep. Next to someone cared about…

  
“What if you miss out on someone on Earth because you’re busy looking at the stars?”

  
“What if you miss out on someone or something beautiful up there because you’re busy with feet anchored to the soil? Afraid to fly?”

  
Carol turned around.

  
“I think I ought to call my friend Abby for a ride home.”

  
She walked towards the house. Therese followed. She wanted to ask why, but had a sense of perhaps why.

  
“What about your car?”

  
“It’s Harge’s. We can come get it in the daytime.”

  
Carol took longer than one typically might to collect her purse and other belongings.

  
“Carol?”

  
She turned to look at Therese, much as she didn’t want to.

  
“Will I ever see you again?”

  
The silence thick, unbreathable, like the humid summer’s day forecasted for tomorrow.

  
“Yes,” Carol said.

  
She phoned Abby, then left to sit on Therese’s porch to smoke three more cigarettes. Therese retreated to her bedroom and cried until Carol left, then she wandered into the guest room and played Satie’s Gymnopedie No. 1 again. Slowly, and painfully. Until the silence threatened to suffocate her. So she went to bed.

~~~~~

When Therese woke up the next morning, she had a message on her voicemail.

  
“I was absolutely horrid to you last night. Would you forgive me?”

  
_Yes. Yes I would._

  
Therese made herself breakfast before calling Carol back. Was she still in the area? There were so many things she hadn’t seen, experienced yet. Maybe she didn’t want to experience them — no, she was afraid to. But there was no use in living life without a little bit of fear, in a good kind of way. A life of constance and safety was not a life at all.

  
Scrambled eggs, toast with jelly, and a glass of milk later, Therese picked up the phone. It remained in her hand, unmoving. She inhaled deeply and dialed Carol back, then pressed it to her ear.  
Carol answered on the second ring. Of course.

  
“Therese?”

  
“Yes?”

  
Silence.

  
“I forgive you, Carol.”

  
“Thank you.”

  
“Are you still around?” Therese said.

  
“I’ve gone to stay at Abby’s summer house about an hour and a half north of New York City.”

  
“Oh.”

  
That was three to four hours away from where Therese lived. Everyone close enough to Syracuse knew it as “the city;” anyone close enough to Albany knew that as “the city,” and anyone close enough to New York City knew that as “the city.” It was good that Carol specified which large city. Therese didn’t like to venture too far into downstate if she could, but maybe she might. Maybe.

  
“What are you doing Sunday?”

  
Two days away.

  
“Nothing in particular. What are you doing?”

  
“May I come up to see you again?”

  
“Yes.”

  
It seemed as if both parties wanted to say something more to the other, but both didn’t know if the other would be receptive or reciprocate. And what were they wanting to express to each other, anyway?

  
“Okay,” Carol said. “Until then.”

  
She hung up.

  
Therese walked into the den and studied her bookcase carefully. She plucked a book off one of the shelves, and thought. She decided against it, and replaced it. Another was selected. Perhaps this could be the one. Yes, it was definitely the one. _Life Everywhere_ , by David Darling. Therese went into the hall closet and grabbed paper bag wrapping paper and twine. She wrapped the book carefully and tied the twine into a neat bow. Hopefully Carol would like the surprise.

  
Carol and Abby enjoyed a lovely breakfast with tea and coffee: poached eggs with creamed spinach for Carol, and chocolate chip pancakes with authentic grade A light amber maple syrup.

  
“So?” Abby said.

  
“So?”

  
“Are you going to tell me about yesterday?”

  
Carol took a sip of her tea.

  
“What do you mean?”

  
“Oh don’t do this with me, Carol, I’ve known you for far too long. You were going to spend the night at that girl’s house, weren’t you? After ditching the family party with Harge?”

  
Carol looked at her teacup.

  
“Yes. I might have,” she said.

  
Abby swirled a piece of pancake in syrup on her plate.

  
“She’s young. Tell me you know what you’re doing.”

  
A sly smile appeared on Carol’s face.

  
“I don’t,” she said quietly, “I never did.”

  
Abby ate more of her pancakes. She dropped some syrup onto her tartan dress, as usual.

  
“Oh, goddammit,” she said.

  
Carol kept smiling. She wouldn’t want any other person for her best friend, a childhood friend who sometimes knew her better than she knew herself. She didn’t feel the need to pretend to be anything or anyone other than who she was. Abby was a go-getter, something Carol admired about her and something Carol wished she could be more like. Not serious and pensive so much. But Therese… what an odd mixture of both features. Carol still couldn’t quite suss out the enigma of Therese. She truly was alien to her. Maybe that’s why Therese felt such comfort in searching for extraterrestrial life: she had trouble finding others, finding humans on this planet, who truly understood her. Maybe someone out there in another galaxy could understand her. It pained Carol that Therese felt like an outcast, even thought she said she wasn’t lonesome. Therese craved connection; a craving Carol knew all too well. But would Therese be able to connect with her, when they seemed to have fundamentally different ideologies about the world around them? When Carol refused to remove her feet from the ground, and Therese refused to come back from the sky?

  
“So when will you see her next?” Abby said.

  
“Sunday. I’m going back to her place. Heaven knows she probably wouldn’t want to travel to the city. The poor dear frightens even in the company of one; imagine how the crowds of New York would treat her.”

  
“Maybe she’s frightened around you.”

  
Abby suggestively raised an eyebrow.

  
“What is _that_ supposed to mean?” Carol said.

  
“You _do_ have a way about you. And you were dressed pretty sharply last night. If she lives off a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, I mean, how many people outside of the town do you think she meets?”

  
Carol thought about this for a bit.

  
“Come with me to buy her something?” she said.

  
“What?”

  
“I want her to know that it’s okay to trust me. That I do want to be her friend.”

  
Abby snickered, hiding her mouth to try and muffle the sound.

  
“Oh will you stop?”

  
Carol smiled when she said this.

  
“I mean it,” she said, “I want to give her something she’ll like.

“So where do you want to go to get her this declaration of your love?”

  
“Do you think it would be too cumbersome to go to the city for it? Or do you think we could find something around here?”

  
Abby rested her chin in her hand and thought for a moment.

  
“Well, that depends,” she said, “What were you thinking of getting her? Or, rather, what does she like?”

  
“She has tons of books. But I wouldn’t want to get her one she might already have. Oh, wait, I got it! Photography.”

  
“I actually know a pretty good shop in the next town, if you wanna go today,” Abby said.

  
“Yes, let’s. Thank you.”

  
Carol rose from her seat and helped Abby clear the dishes. The two set off on their mission. Abby drove to the photography shop, which was small like many shops in the town, but stocked with plenty of items for any level of artist. Carol walked up to the man behind the glass counter.

  
“Hi, I was wondering if you could recommend me your best camera for shooting stars?”

  
“Ooh, into star photography, eh?” he said.

  
“No, no, it’s a gift for someone.”

  
“Well, I’d say your best bet would be this one right here.”

  
He unlocked one of the glass cases and removed a digital camera, the Nikon D810-FX.

  
“This goes up to an amazing level of ISOs, which lets in more light the higher the number of your ISO setting. When you’re shooting at night, you’ll want as much starlight as possible. This will make your husband’s day, let me tell ya,” he said.

  
Carol tried not to let her face betray her. She still wore her wedding and engagement rings, since the divorce wasn’t yet finalized. Abby looked at the items in the store to keep busy: standard 35mm rolls of film, disposable cameras, photo albums and protective sleeves, camera bags, and all sorts of film sizes and colors she didn’t know what photos they would produce.

  
“Now, is there anything else I might need to go along with this?” Carol said.

  
“Well, the only other things I would really suggest are a fish-eye lens to make the star shots even more phenomenal, a tripod, and a nice bag to protect everything. Nikon don’t make cheap cameras.”

  
“Money is no object for me,” Carol said, “Please select the best of those things and ring up my purchase.”

  
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  
Once again Carol tried not to react. When all was said and done, Carol and Abby walked back to the car.

“Would you mind if we picked up my car today? I want you to take a look at it and if it’s something easy you can do for it, I’ll just drive back… home.”

  
“Nonsense, you know you can stay with me whenever and however long you like,” Abby said.

  
“You know how Harge is,” Carol said.

  
Abby exhaled.

  
“Fine. I would feel better if you didn’t drive all the way back to Larchmont, but once you make up your mind, I know it’s impossible to get you to change it.”

  
Carol laughed a small laugh.

  
Abby drove them to the area where Carol’s car had broken down.

  
“Okay, let’s see what’s going on here,” Abby said.

  
She lifted up the hood and took a peek.

  
“Hm.”

  
“Hm?”

  
“I’m not seeing anything obvious, at least yet,” Abby said, “Hop in your car. I’m going to try the jumper cables.”

  
Abby hooked up the jumper cables to each car and gave hers some gas.

  
“Try to turn yours on,” she said over the roar.

  
Carol turned the ignition and the car struggled, but wouldn’t turn on.

  
Abby lifted her foot off the gas and double-checked the connections. They were solid. She gave the car more gas.

  
“Do it again!”

  
Carol turned the key again. The car sputtered, but managed to turn on.

  
“Oh, thank you, Abby, you’re so sweet to me,” Carol said.

  
Abby unhooked the cables and took another look in the hood.

  
“No, I’m still not seeing anything obvious.”

  
She peered at the dashboard.

  
“No lights on, either. That’s strange. Well, I’d feel better if I at least followed you until we got ‘round my place. Is that cool?”

  
“Yes, sure.”

  
Carol pulled away from the shoulder first, then Abby followed. The car didn’t give out, and Carol had made sure to drive carefully and attentively to how it handled. When they neared the exit for Abby’s place, Abby took the ramp and two waved at each other, with Carol continuing down state route 17 and then the Hutchinson River Parkway.

  
Harge was waiting for Carol when she entered their extravagant house.

  
“What are you doing here?” she said.

  
“What am I doing here? I _live_ here, Carol. Just in case you’ve forgotten,” Harge said.

  
Carol focused on putting down her purse and the bag with the camera and accessories gently. She opened a square ceramic container on the entryway table and removed a cigarette.

  
“And where were you last night?” Harge said.

  
“I was at a friend’s. The car broke down,” Carol said.

  
She lit the cigarette and took a long drag from it.

  
“And you didn’t think once to call me, to tell me this? Carol, I was worried about you! You’re my responsibility.”

  
“Harge, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

  
“What did you do about the car? And who is this friend you stayed with?” he said.

  
“I let it rest while I was at my friend’s. And she’s none of your concern,” Carol said.

  
She started to walk through to the stairs, but Harge stepped in her path.

  
“Harge,” Carol said.

  
“Tell me the truth. You were at Abby’s the whole time. That’s why you didn’t come to the party.”

  
“No, I wasn’t, Harge.”

  
“Look, I know you don’t have the warmest feelings for my parents, but they only want what’s best for us. And you’ve been spending an awful lot of time at Abby’s, lately.”

  
“So what?”

  
Harge noticed the rather large black camera bag.

  
“What is that?” he said.

  
“Nothing. It’s a present for someone.”

  
“For Abby?”

  
“No.”

  
“You know, Carol,” Harge said, “I put nothing past women like you.”

  
“Well, you _married_ a woman like me!” she said.

  
She tried to get past Harge, but accidentally knocked him to the floor.

  
“Dammit, Carol!”

  
“Harge,” she said.

  
Carol attempted to put a hand on his arm when he stood up, but he smacked it aside with the back of his hand. He grabbed his keys and slammed the front door in haste.

  
Florence, the housekeeper, smiled as she put away clean pots and pans.

  
Carol stubbed out her cigarette and climbed the stairs. She fell into her bed and leaned over her nightstand, taking a cigarette from a flat silver case that rested upon its surface. She lit this one, too, and smoked in silence. Sunday was too far away. But she just drove all the way from Burdett and wasn’t in the mood to drive back, nor did she feel it was appropriate to ask Therese to drive all the way down to practically Manhattan. Still, she desired company, not just anybody’s, not even Abby’s. She phoned Therese.

  
She picked up almost on the last ring, as she typically did, far too absorbed in her research or photography.

  
“Hello?”

  
“Hello, Therese Belivet,” Carol said.

  
That voice, smooth and thick like honeyed cream. Therese could melt like palmed fun-sized chocolates.

  
“Hello, Carol,” she said.

  
That voice, shy and gentle like a lamb’s. Carol could drift away into a softly-flowing river on a sunny day.

  
“I was, uhm, wondering, actually,” she said, “if perhaps you might like to come down to my house tonight?”

  
“Hm. It would be awfully late,” Therese said.

  
Carol took two extra short puffs of the cigarette.

  
“But, I suppose it might be nice to leave the house for a night, experience a new setting. Should I leave now? What’s your address?”

  
“Yes, it’s quite a drive, I’m afraid.”

  
She gave Therese the address in Larchmont.

  
“See you soon,” she said.

  
Therese smiled; she hoped Carol could somehow hear it through the telephone.

  
“See you soon,” she said.


	3. Chapter 3

It was dark when Therese arrived at Carol’s address. There were a few times when she had to pull to the side and consult her folding paper map, as well as once when she wanted to catch an uninhibited view of the full moon. She left her car out in the front circle and rang the doorbell.

Carol opened the door. Therese wore a short-sleeved cotton dress and brown flats. The dress was light gray, with navy and true blues sprawling upwards starting from the bottom. There were silhouettes of bare tree branches that also sprang up from the hem. Therese was also wearing a long silver necklace, round, and with a fox’s face on one side.

“My, you look _quite_ ravishing,” Carol said.

Therese smiled a small smile and looked at the ground.

“Well come in, come in!”

Carol wore a deep blue dress with the same pearl necklace. Her earrings were gold-bordered with pearls in the center of them, and she answered the door barefoot. Carol couldn’t see this, but Therese smiled at her answering the door this way.

They walked through the front entrance hallway and into the living room, or perhaps one of the main living rooms. There were numerous couches and armchairs, or it seemed that way, and an unlit fireplace. Across from this section, a grand piano rested near the corner beside several windows.

“Are you up to playing something?”

“Yes,” Therese said, “But first, may I have something to drink?”

“Of course,” Carol said.

She brought back a bottle of beer for Therese and a small glass of whiskey for herself. Therese smiled when she took the beer from Carol.

“I didn’t think you noticed what brand I was drinking last night,” she said.

“I notice everything.”

Therese drank a little of the beer.

“With people?”

“Hm?”

“You notice everything with people, I mean?” Therese said.

Carol sat on a cushion bench near the piano.

“Yes,” she said, “Just as you do with… not-people.”

They laughed. Therese placed her beer on a coaster and took a peek into the piano.

“Wow,” she said softly.

“Have you played on a grand piano before?” Carol said.

“No. I taught myself on the small pianos in the practice rooms at Ithaca College. Then I bought the one I have so I could play whenever I wanted.”

“Is that where you work?”

“Sometimes. Or Cornell, or one of the community colleges, too. If they need someone to give a lecture on something.”

Therese shrugged like it was no big deal to sometimes give astronomy or physics lectures at one of the top music schools or an Ivy League. Carol shook her head and drank some more. Therese sat at the piano bench, cracked her knuckles, and readied herself. Then, she began to play. This song was different than the one she had played the day before. Carol couldn’t place it, but it did feel vaguely familiar. It wasn’t until Therese hit the chorus notes that it clicked.

“’Is there life on Mars?’” Carol said softly.

Therese played the song in its entirety, but at the final rendition of the chorus, seemed especially in tune with the music. She occasionally closed her eyes while playing or bobbed her head to the rhythm. When Therese had finished playing, she turned towards Carol.

“Did you like it?”

“Yes. It was wonderful, dear.”

“Thank you. It was—”

“’Life on Mars.’ I know,” Carol said.

“Oh, you know this song?” Therese said, “Oh. I didn’t mean it like that.”

Carol hadn’t made a face, but Therese still wanted to apologize. Carol laughed.

“Who doesn’t know David Bowie?”

She sat next to Therese.

“Do you want me to…?” Therese said.

“I want to watch. To learn. If I won’t be in the way,” Carol said.

Therese smiled.

“Okay. I’ll play this song all the way through, normal speed, and then I’ll take each piece apart to teach you.”

With her left hand, she played the background repetition that carried throughout the entire song. With her right hand, she played the whistling harmony. The short song sounded spooky. It only lasted for perhaps a minute, tops.

“And what song is this?” Carol said.

“It’s one I composed.”

She smiled. Carol tucked a piece of Therese’s hair behind her ear and returned the smile. Neither wanted to be the first to break the silence, but someone had to, eventually.

“First, I need you to trade places with me,” Therese said.

Carol was now on the left on the bench, and Therese on the right.

“Okay, I’m going to have you play the rhythm on the left land part, and I’ll play the whistle on the right.”

“Show me,” Carol said.

Therese pointed out each of the notes to Carol, and demonstrated slowed down what the rhythm should sound like. A sharp C sharp F once, F sharp F C sharp four times (with A sharp added onto the last time), then repeating the A sharp C sharp F, and finally F sharp F C sharp four times again (this time, with the ending note on the fourth time being C).

“Now, you try,” Therese said.

Carol couldn’t remember all of the notes or what order some of them went, so Therese stood up and hovered behind her. Leaned over, and placed her left hand over Carol’s.

“A sharp,” ( _ding!_ ) “C sharp,” ( _ding!_ ) “F.” ( _ding!_ )

They proceeded in this way for the duration of the rhythm, until Carol seemed to know the notes on her own. Though, she may have pretended to not know all of them for longer than necessary. Therese remembered when Carol had placed her hands on her shoulders during last night’s piano performance, and Therese thought that maybe Carol might like something like that, too. She rested a gentle hand on the back of Carol’s neck, her thumb brushing against the left side of Carol’s neck. She turned her head a little to the left at the touch, then looked up at Therese. The silence was palpable. Someone would have to make a move. But who? And when? Carol cleared her throat.

“Let’s play,” she said.

Therese took her place beside Carol on the right.

“Ready?” she said.

“Yes.”

Carol started off the rhythm and Therese jumped in when the whistling was meant to speak. With her left hand, Therese steadily rocked it back and forth in time to the beat, to help center Carol. There were mistakes on Carol’s part, of course, but Therese kept going without acknowledging them until they reached the end of the song.

“I think you did very well for this being your first time with this song, especially one that is original. And for someone who says she hasn’t got a musical bone in her body.”

There were those dimples again. Do you even know what you are, Therese? What you’re made of?

“Why, thank you. I guess it’s because I never had a great teacher until now.”

Therese stood up and drank more of her beer.

“Carol, will you stay here for a moment? I have to get something from my car.”

“Sure,” she said. She didn’t know what this meant, but Therese seemed to always be full of surprises.

When Therese had gone outside, Carol made sure the camera bag was still tucked safely in the hall closet. She wasn’t sure when would be a good time to give it to Therese, but perhaps the time would near. Therese returned with something hidden behind her.

“Close your eyes,” she said.

Carol folded her arms. Therese nodded, _go on, do it_ , so Carol obliged. She felt something against her palms, crinkled, smooth.

“Okay, open them.”

It was the paper bag wrapped book. The gift tag at the top left read, “To Carol, From Therese.” The first card she had written had said, “For Carol, From Therese,” but she hadn’t liked the way that sounded.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have,” Carol said.

“Open it!”

Carol sat on the cushioned bench and placed the present in her lap. She untied the twine bow and removed it, then carefully tore the brown paper as only a refined woman could.

“ _Life Everywhere_ ,” Carol said, “’What is life? How does it originate? How often does life survive once it arises? How does evolution work? And what determines whether complex or intelligent life will emerge from more primitive forms?’”

“I hope you will like it,” Therese said.

“Thank you. But are you sure this won’t be too much for me?”

“I am certain. But I would be happy to talk with you about anything you have questions on.”

“What made you think to give me this?” Carol said.

“I think it’s because,” Therese said, “I don’t know. It just felt right to give to you. I think I can tell that you want to look up. But maybe you’re afraid to.”

“Well, thank you.”

Carol decided against giving Therese her present now. She didn’t want Therese to feel inadequate in her gift. She ran her hands over the cover of the book, feeling its smoothness.

“Would you like to see the upstairs?” she said.

“Yes. Yes, I would.”

“Should I get your bag first?”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Therese said.

“I want to.”

“Okay.”

She gave Carol her car keys and after a few minutes, Carol returned with Therese’s backpack.

“This is all you’ve brought?”

“It’s only one night. What else would I need?”

Carol smiled to herself. She opened the ceramic container and took out a cigarette.

“Would you like a smoke?”

“No, not now. But thank you.”

Carol took the bag and book upstairs, and Therese followed. They entered at first what Therese thought was a guest room, but was a child’s room instead. Carol stubbed out the cigarette.

“I didn’t know you have a daughter,” Therese said.

“Yes,” Carol said. Her voice sounded sad.

“She doesn’t live with you?”

“It’s complicated. She’s been living with Harge and his family in their house upstate lately. It’s better than schlepping her back and forth constantly. She will live with me when the divorce is finalized.”

Therese picked up a framed photo of Carol and her daughter. The child looked about six in the picture. She was wearing a tartan jumper with a long-sleeved white top underneath, and shiny black shoes. Carol was wearing a gray three-quarter sleeve dress, the pearls, and matching gray high heels. Harge was not in the picture, and this was why Carol framed it. There were other pictures in Rindy’s room that featured Harge, but this was Carol’s favorite. Rindy had light brown hair, similar in style to Therese’s, and was held back some by a black velvet-looking headband.

“She looks like you, around the eyes,” Therese said.

Carol placed her hand on her chest.

“What’s her name?”

“Rindy. Short for Nerinda.”

“That’s a beautiful name.”

Therese continued to explore Rindy’s room: coloring books and crayons on the child-sized desk with child-sized chairs, age-appropriate books such as _Harry the Dirty Dog_ and _Fox in Socks_. Therese pulled that one off the shelf.

“This used to be my favorite as a child,” she said.

“Of course,” Carol said.

Therese put her hands on her hips. Without opening the book, she said:

“Fox in socks in box on Knox. Blue goo. Gooey-gooey. Blue goo, gluey gluey.”

Carol laughed.

“Maybe if you’re around when Rindy’s here, you could read it to her.”

“I’d like that.”

Therese peered out the window. She could see trees from the yard. If Carol asked her to share her bed with her tonight, she would like that, too.

“You can sleep in here tonight,” Carol said.

No dice. Therese wanted to see what Carol’s room looked like. But then again, Carol didn’t see what Therese’s room looked like, either, so perhaps that kept them even.

“Are you tired from your drive?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“I’ll let you get undressed. Can I get you anything to drink before bed?”

“Can I have some warm milk, please?” Therese said.

My God, she really is still just a child.

“Uhh… sure. I’ll go set it up. You get ready here.”

Carol went downstairs to heat up the milk. With all the money Harge had, they didn’t own a microwave. She poured some in a saucepan and turned the stove top on. In Rindy’s room, Therese took out her polka dot pajamas and got undressed in a hurry. She was afraid Carol would come back in and not knock before entering, though Carol didn’t seem the kind of improper woman to do that. Therese slid underneath the covers and smiled. So comfy.

A few minutes later, Carol returned with a mug of warmed milk.

“I’m so sorry. I’m not very good at cooking. I’m afraid it’s gotten all scummy on top,” she said.

“That’s alright.”

She sat upright and carefully took the mug. Carol sat on the edge of the bed and tried not to be creepy in watching Therese sip the milk.

“Tell me about yourself,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Therese said.

“I don’t want you to tell me about your family — unless you want to,” Carol said, “But I do want you to tell me what drew you to astronomy when you were younger.”

“Hm,” Therese said, “I guess it’s because my father died when I was six, and my mother was terrible at raising me. I always believed not necessarily in heaven, but that he was amongst the stars now. And not that he was ‘looking down on me,’ either, but that… well, one of the basic principles in science is that matter cannot be created nor destroyed, only transferred. Transformed. And I believe this happens even with people. So when he died, though I didn’t know that much about science, I just came to believe that he’d gone somewhere else. His body was destroyed, but his matter, his essence, was somewhere. It had to be. There are six elements that are essential for life — at least, as we know it. Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous, and sulfur. CHNOPS.”

“Wait, slow down,” Carol said, “I’m not a scientist.”

Therese smiled.

“I know. Sometimes I get a little carried away. You seem really interested, though. Not many people I’ve come across take such an interest — except, of course, other scientists.”

Carol placed a hand on Therese’s leg that was underneath the covers still.

“Please, go on,” she said.

“So, uhm, because we’re all made of CHNOPS, I figured once I learned all of this, that that’s where he ended up: the stars. These elements are found in space. And since matter cannot be created nor destroyed, where else could it have gone? And maybe that’s not correct, but it feels correct to me, and I hope that’s what happens to me when I die.”

“Don’t think about such things,” Carol said.

“Why not?”

“Life is precious.”

“It is.”

Therese leaned forward, enough to stretch her hand towards Carol’s. Carol accepted, and placed her hand in Therese’s. She stroked Therese’s hand with her thumb. Therese gave Carol’s hand a quick squeeze. It seemed they sat like this for an eternity. But even eternities are experienced differently depending upon light years traveled. And sometimes it felt as if they _were_ traveling that impossibly fast.

“I should go to sleep,” Carol said.

She let go of Therese’s hand. Therese lied down. Carol stood up and pulled the cover up a little higher.

“Let me know if you need anything,” she said, “I’ll be in the room next door.”

“Okay,” Therese said in a small voice.

Carol brushed aside some of Therese’s hair.

“My angel.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst. Sorry.

Therese woke up to the smell of pancakes and eggs. She stretched in Rindy’s bed and swung her legs out from underneath the covers. Before she headed downstairs, she took another peek outside of the window. The trees swayed in the slight summer breeze and she enjoyed this sight. Then, she carefully walked downstairs and followed the smell of breakfast.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Oh, good morning, dear,” Carol said.

Therese’s heart fluttered. What was this, that they were doing? They barely knew each other, but knew quite a bit already. But what if this was just Carol being motherly towards her, rather than the something more Therese wanted? More exploration and research was needed, she decided.

“I hope you like pancakes and eggs?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Sit,” Carol said.

Therese did as she was told. She wasn’t used to doing as she was told, not like this. Not since she broke things off with Richard at the beginning of the summer because he wanted to marry her and sweep her off to Europe, and she didn’t want that. She wanted to go to Iceland if he was going to take her anywhere, and he refused; he said Paris was _far_ more romantic than a dip in the Blue Lagoon or a trip around Ring Road. She wanted to camp or boondock; the thought of potentially going without a shower for a few days horrified him. It might horrify Carol, but maybe she would be willing to try such a thing. She already expressed interest in astrobiology and maybe stargazing, so the next step would be a night out in the woods (Therese knew this still frightened Carol, perhaps because of bears and wolves, but wolves were common in Therese’s backyard in Burdett, which was why the chicken coop stood bare for years) with roasted marshmallows and warmth by the campfire. There was so much more Therese wanted to share with Carol, and maybe Carol with Therese, but would they want to do these things together? Could they meet in the middle?

Carol placed the plate in front of Therese, then worked on cooking her own plate. Therese remembered that Carol said she wasn’t a great cook, and wondered if the pancakes would taste alright.

“Abby taught me how to make good pancakes. She loves them, so of course I had to learn.”

“Could you tell me more about Abby?” Therese asked.

Carol was intrigued, but answered:

“Abby and I have known each other since we were little. We used to play together a lot. Then we lost touch when we were teenagers. We went to different schools. I missed her, but I didn’t know if she felt the same, so I didn’t try to reach out. I was afraid she had forgotten about me. But one day in my mid-twenties, I heard from her. We got together for lunch one afternoon and it was if there hadn’t been any interruption in our friendship. So it felt great to reconnect.”

“Do you see her often now?”

“Yes. We owned a furniture shop together a few years ago, but it didn’t work out very well. I’d like to try again, though. It was fun. It’s something I know a lot about, that I’m passionate about. That, and antiques.”

Carol smiled. She may not know about physics, but she knew a lot about history, and it made her feel adequate around Therese to know some things Therese didn’t.

“Would you teach me someday? About the pieces or periods you really enjoy?” Therese said.

“Absolutely. I would be glad to.”

She sat down and ate breakfast with Therese in comfortable silence. When they finished, she broke it:

“Well, what would you like to do today? I know you probably want to head back up before it gets late, but maybe we could do something together before then?”

Therese pondered this question. What would be something enjoyable for the two of them?

“How about we pack a picnic lunch and head up to this really great park I know of? It’s not too far from where you live, actually. Have you ever been to Bear Mountain before?”

“I don’t remember. Is it… really a mountain, though?”

Carol wasn’t sure she wanted to go if she didn’t have hiking gear.

“No, not really. You drive up mostly. And you can see mountains in the distance. The views are great. There’s lots of picnic benches, and a carousel, and a small zoo, and lots of people take their children there to play frisbee. And sometimes people take their dogs, too. I like to pet them.”

There go those dimples again. Such an innocent child.

“Okay, that sounds grand, then.”

Carol fetched a rectangular wicker basket with handles, and sandwich ingredients. Therese asked for lots of mayonnaise on hers, with lettuce, pickles, Muenster cheese, and turkey. Carol used Dijon mustard, black olives, extra sharp cheddar cheese, and lots of ham. Therese also wanted Oreos, and Carol laughed. She did have some for when Rindy visited, and Therese had a few before they packed the rest.

“Don’t spoil your lunch!” Carol said.

“I won’t!”

They also packed apples, peanut butter, granola, and water, as well as cups, spoons, and napkins.

“I’m so excited to eat lunch,” Therese said.

“I guess I better learn to be a better cook,” Carol said.

Therese looked at Carol curiously. Carol hadn’t noticed, though. She didn’t want to forget anything.

“Are we ready?” she said.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Do you want to drive or shall I?”

“I’ll drive. I know the way,” Therese said.

Therese opted to listen to the radio. She wasn’t sure she could trust her CD and its music. It could betray how she felt. But the DJ was determined to reveal her feelings, anyway. Beck was on.

 

_I think I’m in love_

_But it makes me kind of nervous to say so_

_Really think I better get a hold of myself_

_Don’t wanna let the night get ahead of myself_

_Whisperin’ her love through a smoke ring smile_

_She doesn’t know what happens when she’s around_

 

Therese changed the station. No luck.

 

_You help me lose my mind_

_And you bring me something I can’t define_

_Help me lose my mind, make me wonder_

_What I felt before_

_Keep biding my time,_

_How much longer?_

_Who I’ve been waiting for_

 

“Why did you change that other song?” Carol said.

“I didn’t like it very much,” Therese lied.

“Hm.”

Don’t look don’t look don’t look at her.

Therese let this song play to the end. She didn’t want to lie to Carol again. It wasn’t a good feeling.

They arrived at Bear Mountain State Park. Therese took the picnic basket out from the back and Carol, the blanket.

“Where shall we sit?” she said.

“Maybe we should visit the zoo first? I didn’t want the food to spoil sitting in the car.”

“Okay.”

They walked to the zoo. There were slate stone steps to climb down, a seemingly long way, before they were able to reach the zoo. Lots of families were there in the Reptile House.

“Ick,” Carol said in a low voice.

“I heard that,” Therese said, equally low.

Carol wasn’t sure why this bothered Therese as much as it did, but she decided to keep quiet. There were frogs, snakes, and lizards of the local area in tanks, which were housed within the bedrock. Even though Therese had been here before, she read the plaques next to the tanks. Carol tried to take an interest in the reptiles but was a tad grossed out by them, and afraid of the snakes — some of them were quite large, and they _were_ local, and they _were_ in a heavily wooded area, after all.

They moved on from the Reptile House to the rescued animals section. This was where injured wildlife who had been nursed back to health lived; they were too injured to return to their natural habitats, so they stayed here in the zoo. There were a few foxes, Therese’s favorite animal, as well as coyotes, birds (including a bald eagle), and deer. Carol liked the deer the best. From there, they walked to the bear enclosure. The bears were far around from any of the spectators, but Carol was still nervous around them. Therese watched for a bit.

“Do you want to picnic?” Carol said.

“No. Let’s walk along the lake.”

There was still some edge to Therese’s voice. Carol ran through the day’s events and yesterday’s to figure out where she might have misstepped. She wasn’t able to come up with anything, though.

They walked along the edge of the lake. There were signs for no swimming and minimum distances for fishing. A few people fished. The mountains, a gray-blue, were in the distance. Therese took a few pictures with her 35 mm camera. Other than the open field where families played frisbee and soccer, and the carousel behind them, there wasn’t much else to explore. There was a large wood cabin and stone building in the distance in front of them, but it was the lodge where people could stay in the (expensive) hotel. Carol wanted to ask, _now?_ , but didn’t want to press Therese again.

“Are you hungry?” Therese said.

“Yes.”

Carol unfurled the blanket and they sat down, enjoying the picnic lunch in uncomfortable (for Carol) silence.

“Therese?”

“Hm?”

“Can I ask you what’s bothering you?”

At first, Therese didn’t answer. Carol was afraid she wouldn’t answer at all. But then, Therese spoke:

“You and Abby… you used to be together, didn’t you?” she said in a low voice.

“Oh, oh my — yes, Therese, we were together, but it was a brief winter and I broke it off when I knew Rindy was going to be born. I wanted to try one last time to work things out with Harge, for the sake of our daughter. And Abby is her godmother. There is nothing between us anymore.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Therese, I am sure.”

Therese still seemed tentative, unsure she believed Carol.

“Therese…”

“Yes?”

Still an edge, but a softer one, now. Guarded. The voice of someone who had been hurt before, perhaps hurt recently, even.

“Therese, I like spending time with you. I _want_ to spend time with you. I look forward to it.”

There. She said it. Out loud, in the open. No more guessing.

“Really?”

A small voice. Afraid to trust, but wanting to, badly.

“Yes.”

Carol extended her hand, palm up. Therese looked at it, then at Carol. She placed her hand in Carol’s. Carol squeezed it, _I love you_.

“Please trust me. I won’t hurt you,” Carol said.

Therese closed her eyes and exhaled a big breath.

“Okay.”

They finished their lunch. Therese lied down on the blanket, put her arms crossed underneath her head, and stared at the sky. She watched the clouds pass by, and didn’t really think so much about the shapes they made. Carol wasn’t sure what to do with herself, so she pulled her knees underneath her chin and watched the families play games. She wished she were here with Rindy, too. Rindy loved tag, though Carol couldn’t always keep up after awhile. Therese would like Rindy a lot. And Rindy would certainly like Therese, Carol was sure of it. But would they get a chance to meet? Carol would receive custody of Rindy when the divorce was over, but who knew how long that might take? And Harge would still want visits — to have her beautiful baby ripped from her every other weekend, though fair for Harge, was enough to make Carol tear up. But she didn’t, not in front of Therese. Therese needs someone strong to be there for her, to reassure her, to be grounded for her. Carol needed to be that someone. Even if she didn’t always understand Therese.

Carol allowed idle thoughts to float through her mind. Where would the summer take them? What about winter? Would they spend Thanksgiving, Christmas together? Would they take Rindy trick-or-treating together? Abby was right, Therese _was_ young, and did Carol _really_ know what she was doing (no). Did Therese know what she was getting herself into (no)? This was too good to be true, which meant it wouldn’t last, Carol decided. Still, she wanted it to.

Therese sat up. She watched Carol look at the children play with their parents.

“You miss her, don’t you?” she said.

Carol didn’t look at Therese when she answered:

“Yes. Dearly.”

“Don’t worry. You will be with her soon.”

Carol turned to look at Therese. _Will she really?_

“I know it.”

_But how?_

“Do you want to ride the carousel?”

Therese smiled. She wanted to make up for her sour mood earlier.

“Oh, I wish I could. I get terribly motion sick, I’m afraid. But you can, if you like.”

“No. If you can’t, I don’t want to.”

“Therese, don’t hold yourself back because of me.”

Carol was the irritated one now.

“I’m… not. I’m choosing not to go. If you like someone, you can choose to do things together. Is this not what we’re doing?” Therese said.

Carol stood up.

“I need to walk… by myself. I’m sorry.”

Therese stayed in confusion. What was wrong? Was it because Carol missed Rindy? Was it because Therese did something wrong?

“Fine.”

Carol walked off by herself (but not too far away, just near the hot dog and concession stands) to clear her mind. Therese packed up the blanket and basket, and walked in the opposite direction, near a hiking trail. She knew woods well, even ones she wasn’t as familiar with as her own backyard, and she knew not to go too far into them if Carol came back. If anything, Carol would wait at the car, Therese figured.

At the concession stands, there were, of course, more families. Dads bought their daughters ice cream cones, and moms bought their sons Spider-Man and Captain America ice pops. Teenagers bought hot dogs and greasy cheeseburgers. Carol knew it wasn’t healthy for her, especially since they had pretty much just eaten, but she wanted to eat a cheeseburger somehow out of spite. Spite for who, she didn’t know, but it would feel good. She instead settled on a hot dog, more expensive than it should have been. It came with fries and a Coke, and she wished Therese were there to split the fries with. But she had stormed off, and Therese’s absence was her fault.

There were wooden benches in the shade, and Carol sat down by herself at one. A dad and his daughter came up to her a few minutes later.

“I’m sorry, but is it okay if we sit here? All of the other benches are full,” he said.

Carol gestured with her hand.

“Go ahead.”

Ouch. Too abrasive, she realized too late.

He sat down with his daughter, probably not a year or two older than Rindy. Carol tried not to glance at them too much.

“Daddy, can I eat my cone _now_?”

“Sure, sweetie. But only because I don’t want it to melt! And don’t tell Mommy I let you have dessert first.”

He winked at her.

“I won’t!”

She giggled, and licked the sides of the vanilla ice cream her father held, then the top, and continued until the ice cream only remained inside of the wafer cone. When it was done, she ate her hot dog diligently, and the father ate his, too. Carol stole glances when she was sure they weren’t looking, though she thought maybe the daughter was more perceptive than Carol assumed. They finished eating, and stood up.

“Thank you,” the father said.

He walked to the trash can and threw away the paper hot dog holders and napkins. Carol watched the other people around her eating: other families, teenagers, and young couples. There was something about the young couples that captured Carol: they played with their fingers in entwined hands, they played footsie, they rested their chins on the backs of their hands and gazed at each other as if there was no forest or people around them. Carol and Therese didn’t really do those things. Therese probably wondered if Carol and Abby had done those things at some point. Therese just wants what other young people do and want. Carol was afraid to show her affection for Therese; she knew what it was like to have loved and lost. And she wanted to spare Therese that feeling, and herself another round of that, too. But it wasn’t up to her to decide what Therese would or could feel. That was for Therese to decide and handle. And it wouldn’t do any good to treat Therese like a child, Carol realized. She saw where she had gone wrong, and she stood up. She had a strong desire to find Therese, to embrace her and tell her how sorry she was, to say _please don’t give up on me, I’m trying so hard_.

She wasn’t sure where she would find Therese, but she knew a good place to start: the forest. And though the sun grew lower in the sky, and the park closed at sunset, and Carol was afraid of being in the woods, she wanted to find Therese more than she was afraid of this. So she entered the first trail she could find.

“Therese?” she said, loudly. “Are you here?” _Darling?_

After a few minutes, the trail forked. _Which way to go?_ Carol chose the one that was the least worn. It’s what Therese probably would have picked.

She was right. After what seemed an eternity, she found Therese resting on a bench, doodling in the dirt with a stick. No one else was around.

“Oh, my darling! I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have stormed off like that. Would you please forgive me?” Carol said.

Therese looked up. Carol sat down on the bench next to her. She put her arm around Therese and pulled her close. Therese closed her eyes and turned towards Carol. She looked up at Carol in those steel-gray eyes that pleaded for forgiveness. Therese pressed her forehead against Carol’s and closed her eyes again.

“Yes,” she whispered, “I forgive you.”

Carol wrapped her other arm around Therese, and nuzzled her face in the crook of Therese’s neck. Therese placed her left hand on Carol’s upper arm and stroked it with her thumb. _I love you_.

“We should go,” Therese said.

They untangled themselves and stood up.

“Yes,” Carol said, “Let’s. You have a long drive home. I don’t want to keep you.”

_But I wouldn’t mind if you kept me,_ Therese thought.

Therese dropped Carol off at her house and quickly packed up her belongings.

“When will I see you again?” Carol said.

“Soon,” Therese said, “I have a lecture coming up next week at NYU. Maybe we could grab something to eat before? Or after. I don’t mind either way.”

“Okay. Until next time, my dear.”

Carol gave Therese a small wave. Therese smiled. A smile with her mouth, and eyes. She started up the Wrangler and was on her way back to Burdett. The house felt so empty without another person in it. Even Spooky wasn’t enough to keep her company, though he was always a welcome companion.

“Spooky, do you know how much you mean to me?” Therese said.

“Mrow?”

Therese stroked his belly. Spooky twisted his body back and forth on the carpet in bliss. Therese picked him up and snuggled him.

“I hope Carol likes you as much as I do,” she said.

She put him down and took her telescope outside. The perfect spot was near the front of the house, with all of the lights off, or to the side, without the sight of the trees in the way. Therese focused the lens and turned the page open to the next blank chart to plot astral objects. But something unusual crossed the lens. It wasn’t a shooting star, though an untrained eye might have mistaken it for such. She tore her eye away from the lens to see it unmagnified.

“Whoa.”

It could have been an airplane, but it wasn’t. It just wasn’t. It had the most bizarre lights and hovered for a moment before it darted off into nothingness. Therese dropped the star charts and immediately ran into the house. She knew who would have more information about what she just saw. She ran to the den and jammed on the space bar too many times to wake her computer up from sleep mode. When she signed in and opened up her email, she sent an encrypted message to four people:

 

_To: <trust_no1@mail.com>; <jfbyers@mail.com>; <tango_dancer@mail.com>; <theyrewatching@mail.com>_

_From: <tbelivet@mail.com>_

_Subject: New sighting!_

_Message:_

 

_New sighting near house. People will think it was an airplane but it definitely wasn’t. Did you get any hits? Message me when you can._

 

_\- T_

 

Therese sat back in her armchair, wild with excitement. She couldn’t wait to tell Carol.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Therese continued to correspond over the next few hours with her friends in Washington, D.C. about the possible UFO sighting. One of the friends was an FBI agent who specialized in the paranormal and the unexplained, and the others were not only experts on those matters, but in government conspiracies and cover ups. Therese didn’t necessarily believe everything they did regarding the cover ups, but was open to the ideas if the evidence was irrefutable. She did believe aliens, perhaps frequently, visited Earth to observe humanity. After all, if humans were able to travel far enough to habitable planets and found out they contained intelligent life, isn’t that what we’d be doing?

It was determined that it was in fact a UFO, one of the triangle-shaped ones that had been recorded in previous sightings throughout history. The Lone Gunmen, as the three non-FBI agents were called, had received reports from other individuals about the sighting, as well as similar sightings that night. Therese had only seen three in her own time observing the night sky. She hoped to one day meet one of the travelers.

Carol wandered about the house aimlessly. She smoked a cigarette and wondered what Rindy was up to. She tried not to think about Rindy having more fun with Harge than with her. What if Rindy decided that she wanted to live with him instead of with Carol? She wasn’t sure if she could bear that. Joint custody, she could probably handle that. But to lose her completely? She couldn’t think of a crueler fate. And what sorts of ideas would Harge and his parents fill her head with? About what Carol was like? Would Rindy remember the kind of person Carol was, _is_?

The telephone rang and frightened Carol. She calmed her nerves and picked up the receiver. It was Abby.

“Do you want to come over? I know you’ve probably been feeling lonely lately.”

“What makes you say that? And no, come here instead. I can’t stand being alone,” Carol said.

“I know. I’ll be over soon.”

Abby wasn’t more than an hour or an hour and a half away, but with her driving, it was probably closer to 45 minutes. Carol smoked through another two cigarettes by the time Abby arrived.

“So how are you?” she said.

Carol paced too much in the living room.

“Come on, tell me. I’ll make you some tea,” Abby said.

With their teacups (Carol had immediately put hers down on the table), Carol spoke:

“I don’t know, Abby. This is too much for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were right. She _is_ young. What am I _doing_?”

“Oh, Carol,” Abby said.

She stood up from the armchair and placed her hand on Carol’s upper arm. Carol looked into Abby’s eyes and searched.

“You love her,” Abby said.

Carol didn’t confirm nor deny it.

“Well,” Abby said, “I’m betting she feels the same way about you, with the way you talk about her. Why are you afraid of this? You’re in love! Isn’t that a good thing?”

“No, it’s not,” Carol said curtly.

Abby sat back down and sipped her tea. She knew better than to push Carol before she was ready. Sometimes Carol needed a push, but not this time.

“What if it doesn’t last?”

“Oh, that is just —”

“No, I’m serious! Why would she want to be with someone like me when she could have someone her own age? Someone who thinks like her, believes in space and aliens like her?” Carol said.

“So you’re different from each other. That just means you bring excitement and adventure to the…” Abby said. Hesitantly.

“Relationship? If you could call it that.”

“Well, what _would_ you call it?”

Carol sat down on the edge of the armchair that faced Abby. She placed her hands on her knees and gripped the fabric of her knee-length shorts.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Abby leaned over and put her hand on top of Carol’s.

“Just trust in this. Just see what happens. You can’t control everything in life,” she said.

 

The day that Therese went down to NYU for her lecture, Carol stopped at her lawyer’s office on the Upper West Side.

“Oh, what’s this all about? What was so urgent that you didn’t want to tell me on the phone?” she said.

“Why don’t you, uh… sit down?” he said.

Carol narrowed her eyes a bit and tightened her jaw.

“Why do people think that you’ll take bad news better if you’re sitting down?”

“Fine. Harge has changed his mind about custody. He wants sole custody now.”

Carol sat down anyway.

“What? But we’ve… already agreed on custody. What’s this all about?”

“Look, why don’t we just wait until after the weekend and —”

“No. What is this all about?” she said.

“Okay. I won’t mince words with you. Abby Gerhardt?”

He took off his glasses and put them roughly on top of Carol’s file.

“But that’s —”

“And they’re alleging well… a _pattern_ of behavior,” he said.

Carol scoffed. She stood up and paced the office briefly, then sat on the edge of his desk.

“If he can’t have me, then I can’t have Rindy. That’s what all of this is about. Can he do this, is it legal?”

“I don’t know if it’s moral, but it’s legal.”

She stood up again and faced him.

“When can I see her? In a school, in an office?”

“That’s not the issue here. I would highly advise against seeing her at all. You could… jeopardize the case.”

Carol was anything _but_ an unfit mother, but Harge didn’t see it that way, and didn’t want anyone else to see it that way, either. She wondered if his parents put him up to this, given their ridiculously conservative views, or if he decided to come to this conclusion himself. Did he really think that Rindy would do best without her at all? To be forever cut off from her like that? To fill her head with lies about her mother, so she wouldn’t want to have anything to do with Carol as she grew older? Carol left the office and took out a cigarette to smoke. She mused about what to do with herself given this downturn in events. Her solution for every problem was to always go to Abby to talk about it, but that seemed to be cut off from her now. And what about Therese? What of her? Carol couldn’t lose any more people in her life, not right now. She wished Therese were here, but what would Carol even say to her? It wouldn’t be fair to burden Therese with such problems. Carol was grateful for the sunglasses she wore on this exceptionally sunny day. No one could tell she was tearful — at least, she hoped.

With some time to kill before her rendezvous with Therese, she decided to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It had been awhile since she had been there, and she especially loved the Greek and Roman collections. As usual, the museum was crowded, but just as equally as she observed the art, Carol observed the people, too. There were some families, but not that many with young children. Though, there was one girl Carol smiled at in the Renaissance section; the girl was even younger than Rindy, perhaps four years old, and she sat down cross-legged in front of every painting. She scribbled away on her drawing pad with colored pencils, and her father took pictures of her. _That kid’s going to grow up to be a great person_ , Carol thought.

Some college-aged students sat on the benches with sketch pads, carefully drawing the sculptures and paintings. There were fewer people in the rooms with the furniture and wood sculptures than with the stereotypical classic works, and Carol enjoyed the quieter atmosphere to admire these works. The handicraft was exquisite, and Carol envied those who loaned these pieces to the Met from their private collection. She had money, but wouldn’t dream of spending so much on just one work of art. She eventually made it into the Greek and Roman collections, and though they were particularly crowded, she still gazed at the sculptures: the figures, especially the Greek ones, were so perfectly crafted and beautiful. There was nothing more beautiful, she surmised, than the human body.

The time to meet with Therese was drawing near, so Carol hailed a cab and rode downtown to NYU. She waited outside of the building Therese said the lecture was being held in, and after 15 minutes or so, Therese exited.

“Hi! Sorry I’m late — I stayed to answer a few people’s questions,” she said.

It almost felt natural, Carol thought, for them to give each other a quick peck on the lips. The situation would have certainly called for it. But it was not the right time. Maybe later. Later.

“That’s quite alright. Did the lecture go well?” Carol said.

“Yes! Everyone seemed really into it and they asked really good questions.”

“What was it about, again?”

“Nearby exoplanets that could potentially be habitable. It would be so cool if any of Jupiter or Saturn’s moons could. It would be a lot easier to get to them, at least,” Therese said.

“I’m sure the answer is complicated, but what’s an exoplanet?”

“It’s — actually, can we grab some food first? And then I can tell you?”

Carol laughed.

“Of course, darling.”

 _Darling_.

Therese suggested they head to Chelsea for “this really good burger place.” Carol wasn’t really a burger person, but “sure, why the hell not?”

They arrived at Bareburger, where rock hits played from the speakers and cartoons showed on the television screens. There were several bear heads (real? Fake? Probably fake) on the walls, which were covered to look like wood and logs. The table tops were shiny, smooth wood, and the chairs were red and metal. Carol ordered a glass of red wine, and Therese ordered a light beer. When the waitress came back to take their food orders, Therese ordered an elk burger with cheddar cheese, pickles, lettuce, tomato, and the “special sauce” (secret recipe). Carol stuck with a regular beef and typical toppings, and they decided to share waffle fries.

“This is, uhm… a rather interesting place,” Carol said.

“Do you like it?”

“I think I will.”

She winked at Therese.

“I used to come here all the time with my friends when I was at Columbia.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you studied at Columbia.”

Therese blushed and nervously laughed.

“Yeah. I didn’t… go out much in high school.”

“Look at you, all smarty-pants. And now you’re giving lectures at fancy places and going —”

“Going…?” Therese said.

“Going out to places,” Carol said. _Going on dates._

Carol took a sip of her wine. The two were comfortably silent until their food arrived. Unexpectedly, they both reached for the same waffle fry and giggled. Carol remembered the couples at the park. She nudged Therese’s foot with her own.

Therese’s face registered confusion and surprise, then a smile. She returned the nudge. They continued in this way while they ate dinner.

“So, uhm,” Carol said, “I was thinking of, uhm, going on a trip.”

Therese stopped and pulled her foot back to her other one.

“When? Where?”

“Where? I don’t know. Wherever my car will take me. When? Soon.”

Therese looked down at her semi-eaten burger.

“And I was, uhm, wondering, actually,” Carol said, “if you might like to come with me.”

Therese quickly looked up at Carol.

“Would you?”

A pause.

“Yes. Yes, I would.”

 

After they finished eating and Carol paid the bill (Therese had insisted, but Carol wanted to treat Therese after such an astounding lecture), Therese asked what she wanted to do next.

“Shall we walk around?” Carol said.

“Sure,” Therese said.

Chelsea was known for its many rainbow flags outside of businesses, but despite this, not everyone was accepting or even tolerant. Therese and Carol’s hands ached for each other’s touch, but the risk could be too great, especially for Carol. What if someone saw her with Therese? Then she _really_ would never see Rindy again.

They happened upon an ice cream shop. Therese smiled like a child.

“Let’s go in!” she said.

Carol examined the numerous flavors to choose from. She was always fond of chocolate, but which one? Regular? Rocky Road? Moose Tracks? Peanut butter caramel chocolate? Chocolate chip? Before she could make up her mind, Therese leaned closer to talk in a low voice into her ear:

“Let’s share a milkshake.”

“What?” Carol whispered.

“Come on. It’ll be fun.”

It was their turn and Therese spoke before Carol could:

“Hi, one chocolate milkshake, please.”

Carol was sweaty and happy simultaneously. Therese grabbed two straws for them and told Carol to pick out a table.

“Bold, aren’t we?” she said.

Therese stuck out her tongue.

Carol chose a table all the way in the back, facing the wall. There was barely any room to pull the chair back that was against the wall, but Therese would easily slide into the opening. Carol had never felt so embarrassed and pleased in her life, and certainly not at the same time. A few minutes later, Therese joined her with a large chocolate milkshake, topped with a cherry. She handed a straw to Carol and stuck her straw through the bubbly foam. She smiled as she sucked up the thick milkshake, all the while with eyes locked on Carol’s. Where did this sudden burst of confidence come from? It was as if Therese was two different people: the incredibly timid, almost hermit-like stargazer, and the bold and daring lover. Carol didn’t quite understand all of Therese’s surprises, but she thoroughly enjoyed them.

She poked the straw through the foam and sucked the milkshake up. Even she couldn’t resist a smile, too. She never felt this way with Harge. And Abby was different, too — she had known Abby for so long, they already knew so much about each other that there wasn’t much to discover about the other. But Therese, Therese was an enigma, a mystery to unravel, and Carol was thrilled to be a part of the adventure, as frightened as she sometimes felt.

Therese never felt this way with Richard, and had never known she could feel this way about anyone before. She had sometimes wondered if she was different from the other girls she knew in high school and college, but she just didn’t seem _like them_ , either. There wasn’t anyone who looked like her who also seemed to feel the same as she did about Carol. Therese was frightened by all of this, but also felt safe with Carol, and wouldn’t have it any other way. Carol was a mystery to her, an enigma and a puzzle to solve, and Therese lived on puzzles and mysteries to solve. She would figure Carol out, she was determined and certain of this.

Carol’s right hand rested palm down on the table. The two took a short break from drinking the milkshake — it was too thick to suck continuously through the straws, and it hurt to try. Carol looked around, as usual, at the shop and the people in the shop, and Therese impulsively grabbed her 35 mm camera from her bag. She took a quick picture of Carol with the flash on.

“Oh, no, don’t! I look a fright!” Carol said.

“You do not! You look lovely,” Therese said.

She didn’t mean to, but she had put her left hand on top of Carol’s right. They glanced down at this for a moment, then at each other. Therese removed her hand and put her camera back in her bag. Carol busied herself stirring the milkshake to loosen the chunks of ice cream up. They finished the shake after some time and Carol tentatively asked Therese if she would like to stay overnight at her place.

“I know you haven’t gotten your belongings, so I understand if you would rather not,” she said.

“No. I want to,” Therese said.

Carol hailed a taxi and they got in. She gave the driver her address and they rode without a word. The radio played a song neither of them was familiar with, but that Carol immediately enjoyed.

 

_And when we first came here_

_We were cold and we were clear_

_With no colors on our skin_

‘ _Til you let the spectrum in_

 

_Say my name_

_And every color illuminates_

_We are shining_

_And we will never be afraid again_

 

They arrived at Carol’s house and entered. It was late, but not so late that they couldn’t enjoy one last activity before becoming too sleepy.

Therese flopped into the armchair and ran her hands along the fabric. Carol looked on and smiled. _That’s my darling._

“Wait here,” she said. “I have something for you. Close your eyes.”

Therese did as she was told and Carol returned with the bag with the camera, lens, and tripod inside of it. She placed it in front of Therese and knelt down.

“Okay, open them.”

She did and Carol titled the bag towards her. Therese slid out of the armchair and knelt in front of the bag.

“Well, go on! Open it!” Carol said.

Therese did.

“Oh, Carol!”

She turned the camera around in her hands and took it all in. This was an incredibly expensive camera, Therese knew, and no small gesture from Carol. She attached the fish-eye lens and took the tripod out.

“Do you like it?”

“Oh, Carol,” Therese said.

It was all she could say. Carol’s eyes were filled with warmth and appreciation. Neither thought their hearts could swell any larger.

“I can’t wait to take pictures with this. I — I can’t believe you did this,” Therese said.

“Of course, dear,” Carol said. _For you, anything_.

The night was chilly outside, and Carol lit the fireplace. Therese may or may not have snapped a few pictures of Carol with her 35 mm — she needed time to figure out all of the features on her new Nikon.

“How’s it going?” Carol said.

“Hm?”

“With humans? Your friend, who said you should be more interested in humans?”

“It’s going well, actually,” Therese said.

Carol sat on the sofa facing the fire, and Therese took her spot in the armchair from before. They sat in silence before Therese spoke:

“Can I tell you something, Carol?”

Was this it? The moment?

“Absolutely. What is it, my darling?”

 _My_ darling.

“I know you don’t believe in extraterrestrials, but last week after I left your house and got to mine, I saw one. I saw a UFO.”

“Okay,” Carol said in a neutral tone.

“What do you think someone would say if they were watching us?”

“Us or…?”

“Us in general, I mean,” Therese said.

“Well, I don’t think anyone’s _watching_ us,” Carol said.

“But pretend. What if they _were_?”

Carol exhaled too loudly.

“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose they would think a lot of our ways were strange. They probably wouldn't understand a lot of things about humans, and we probably wouldn’t understand things about them.”

“Like kissing.”

“What?”

“They might think people were trying to eat each other’s faces off,” Therese said.

Carol gave Therese a look.

“Did you know that in some ancient societies, kissing was believed to be an exchange of souls?”

“Really,” Carol said.

“Really!”

Therese wished she hadn’t said anything at all about the subject. Some more silence passed, but it was unbearable for her. Finally:

“Do you want to turn in for the night?” Carol said.

“Okay,” Therese said.

It wasn’t okay.

But that was that.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10/23/16: Updated with minor spelling/grammatical fixes; content remains the same.
> 
> I haven't proofed this one yet, so I apologize for any mistakes. I will go back and correct any tomorrow. I just wanted to post this one since I missed two days of writing.
> 
> Also, more angst. Sorry. :(

Therese woke up to the sound of arguing downstairs. She heard Carol’s voice, and also a man’s she thought sounded familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.

“It’s my house. I can come and go as a please,” he said.

“I live here, too, Harge,” Carol said.

“Oh really? Because you seem to spend quite a bit of time with Abby, and at that new girl’s place upstate. Not that you could _also_ visit once in a while at my parents’ when we invite you.”

Therese wasn’t sure it was her place to intrude downstairs, but she was terribly hungry and wanted to be there for Carol. Perhaps Harge would restrain himself if he knew someone else was there, too. So she slid out from the covers and quietly opened Rindy’s door.

“I need to get a few things from Rindy’s room,” Harge said.

“I will get them for you.”

Therese closed the door and quickly searched the room for a place to hide. The closet? But what if what he needed was in there? Under the bed. Yes, that was best. She army-crawled underneath the bed and quieted her breathing.

Harge burst into the room and from his silence, seemed suspicious. He walked over to Rindy’s small desk and collected her watercolors and coloring books, as well as her box of crayons and smock. Carol entered after him, confused.

“Why couldn’t you buy these things for her instead? It wouldn’t hurt her to have extra sets. It’s just entirely unnecessary.”

“Stop being ridiculous, Carol.”

He walked to the closet and grabbed a few of her favorite dresses she had forgotten to pack before. A quick scan around the room, and he left. Carol followed.

When they reached the downstairs and Therese was certain they wouldn’t come back up, she opened the door again to eavesdrop.

“I know she’s here, Carol. I know what you are.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Harge. And you’re terribly cruel.”

“A Wrangler is out front, and I know it’s not yours and I know it’s not Abby’s, so it must be hers. And if I didn’t have to go back so soon to Rindy, I would find this girl.”

“You will do no such thing,” Carol said.

“I will do what I want. You are my responsibility and I won’t have you throwing away our daughter’s future for your selfishness.”

“I don’t need you to tell me how to live my life. Get out.”

“Gladly.”

Harge left and Carol tried to muffle her tears. There weren’t enough cigarettes in the world to calm her. Therese closed her eyes, readied herself, and walked downstairs. She placed a hand on the spot between Carol’s shoulder blades, and gently massaged. Carol turned around and clutched Therese.

“Oh, Carol,” she said.

Carol continued to cry. Therese drew circles on Carol’s shoulders and back, and nuzzled against her neck, _I’m here for you_.

When Carol had composed herself, she spoke:

“Let’s get out of here.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Where?” Therese said.

“I don’t know. Anywhere.”

“How about my place? You could stay as long as you like.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t.”

“Yes, you could. I am more than happy to. Pack some stuff. He doesn’t have to control you or bully you.”

Carol sniffled.

“You’re right. Will you fix us some things to eat? I’ll go gather some stuff.”

“Sounds excellent.”

Therese got dressed and made sandwiches for the two of them, and packed some snacks. She remembered the way Carol liked her sandwiches, and took great care in making them extra special. She used the picnic basket again. When Carol had packed a few suitcases, Therese spoke:

“Shall we use my car?”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. Take care of yourself, Carol. You deserve it. I’ll drive. Just relax and enjoy the ride.”

Carol placed a hand on Therese’s arm. _Thank you_.

Therese helped Carol load up the bags in the back of the car and they got in. Off they rode. Therese decided to trust her mix CD. She felt safer than ever with Carol. Whatever played, she could handle.

Some synthesized songs popped up on the playlist, sounding spooky scary.

“Would you rather listen to something more upbeat?” Therese asked.

“No. This is brooding music,” Carol said.

Was that a good or bad thing? What was Carol thinking? Probably about Rindy and the fight with Harge. But upbeat music might feel cheap, false. Maybe it would be a good thing to let her stew in her thoughts for a bit. It might clear her mind. Or it might worsen her mood. But Therese had to trust that Carol knew herself best. All she could do was be there for Carol in whatever ways she could and whatever ways Carol needed her to be.

They stopped at a rest stop along the way to eat the sandwiches and stretch their legs.

“What are you thinking about?” Therese said.

“Oh, I don’t know. Things,” Carol said, “What about you?”

“You.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes. If you are up to it, I want to take you somewhere tonight.”

“Oh.”

“I know you are a bit afraid of the woods. But I think you would enjoy this. There is a campground and day camp in a park near my house that is beautiful. And if at any point you don’t feel safe, I will take you home, no questions asked.”

Carol mused.

“What do you have planned for this trip?”

“Marshmallows and s’mores. A campfire. Simple stuff. Stargazing, but without the telescope or any instruments. You can find yourself out there,” Therese said.

Carol thought some more about this.

“Do you trust me?” Therese said.

“Yes. I do.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

“Okay,” Carol said, “Take me there tonight.”

Therese smiled.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For trusting me.”

It was Carol’s turn to smile.

They finished their sandwiches and were back on the road. More synthesized music played. Carol couldn’t make out the words to this upbeat digitized song, but she enjoyed it. Therese was so strange, but she was the most different person she had ever known. And she was pushing Carol to go beyond what was comfortable for her. Did she do the same for Therese? She hoped so. She hoped things were reciprocal for them. She couldn’t always tell what was on Therese’s mind, and this was unsettling sometimes. But she trusted Therese. Carol would let Therese hold her life in her young palms if Therese would allow it. And Carol had never felt this way about anyone, not even Abby. This was new territory for Therese, but it was also new for Carol, too. And it made the journey all the more exciting and frightening.

When they arrived at Therese’s house, they unloaded the car. Carol awkwardly stood with her bags at her feet.

“Oh, I’m sorry. You can sleep in the guest room, if you like. Or you can take mine and I’ll sleep in the guest room if you prefer.”

Always willing to give up what she has for someone else.

“No no, it’s fine. I will sleep in the guest room. You needn’t give me yours,” Carol said.

“Okay.”

They brought the bags to the room. The sun was slowly setting. Therese gathered the marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate squares, as well as flashlights, a first aid kit, and a blanket.

“Is it going to be cold out there?” Carol said.

“I don’t think so, not tonight. But you can borrow one of my sweaters if you want. They’re all in my closet.”

Carol tried to keep herself cool. She was going to see Therese’s room.

In it, the walls were painted a deep blue with gold trim. There was a photo of Therese on her bedside, framed. She was dressed up real fancy, and holding some kind of award or certificate, standing next to a podium. It must have been from a particularly prestigious speech. _My angel, so smart._

On the walls were her college degrees, also framed. One from Cornell University, a Bachelor’s in Astrophysics and Biology, and the other a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics from Columbia University. Carol didn’t even fully know what these meant, just that Therese was incredibly intelligent, more so than Carol may have realized. She noticed the years of graduation and realized they put Therese at having obtained them quite young. _She must have graduated from high school when she was sixteen. And what do I know? Furniture and antiques. I don’t know anything. And she could easily learn about those if she read enough._ Suddenly her art history degree from William and Mary paled in comparison. And Therese was a talented photographer, too!

The furniture was a deep cherry color, just like the study/den. The lamp had the distressed brass look, and a few more photographs hung on the walls. There was a painting on the wall next to the closet that wasn’t signed with Therese’s name; it was from an artist Carol didn’t recognize, but was perhaps local to the area. It was of a galaxy or of something in space — perhaps the Milky Way? The closet had a dark wood door with a brass round knob, and gave the house an old feel. She opened the door and looked over Therese’s wardrobe. Some of the clothes were like the ones she wore when they first met: plaid, lumberjane shirts, but some of them were quite feminine. Dresses, mostly in dark hues. Therese would look so beautiful in these.

Carol spotted a photo album up top on the closet shelf. She glanced at Therese’s bedroom door, then at the album. She reached up and took it down. The photos were of Therese in various stages of childhood and her teen years: Therese, with a child’s telescope; Therese, unwrapping the Christmas paper on a red child’s microscope set; Therese, holding a book up from an elementary school project; awkward Therese, in middle school with a friend (Danny?) wearing a white NASA tee and high-waisted jeans with Converse sneakers and he wearing a black tee that said, “I NEED MY SPACE.” Therese, in her cap and gown at her high school graduation, holding her diploma and shaking hands with the principal of the school. Therese, sitting in a computer lab with wire-rimmed reading glasses, giving the thumbs-up to the photographer, a textbook next to the keyboard. Therese, with a young man Carol wondered might be Richard, dressed in their Christmas best, Richard with a warm smile in front of the tree, Therese with a less-than-cheerful forced smile. Carol’s mood dipped. _My poor angel._

“Hey, slowpoke!” Therese said.

Carol could hear Therese drawing near and hurried to get rid of the photo album. She threw it back on the shelf, cursed how loud the sound was, and busied herself with sorting through the sweaters. Therese didn’t notice a thing.

“Find anything you like?” she said.

“I like your wardrobe,” Carol said.

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Why don’t you wear the dresses more often?”

Therese shifted uncomfortably.

“They’re just for nice occasions. I don’t feel myself in them.”

“What do you mean?” Carol said.

She walked up to Therese. Her gray eyes were too intense for Therese right now. Therese looked at her shoes.

“I’m not that put-together.”

Carol put her hand on Therese’s arm. _You are for me._

“When did you earn your degrees?” she said.

Therese’s eyes shone.

“I graduated from high school early. I already knew what I wanted to study, and since I already lived in the area, I applied to Cornell. I was so happy when I was accepted. I finished a year early because I had taken a few college classes while I was in high school.”

“Oh my!”

Therese smiled.

“Yeah. I read, a lot.”

“’Too much, probably?’” Carol said.

“Yes.”

“Please, continue.”

“So then I got my undergrad degree and immediately applied for a joint Master’s/Doctorate. It’s hard to get anywhere in the sciences without an advanced degree. I couldn’t finish that one early; it was really difficult.”

“Even for you?”

“Yes, even for me. I’m not _that_ amazing,” Therese said.

_Yes you are._

“I only got that one pretty recently, but I had some stuff published while I was in school before, so it gave me some credibility and my mentor was able to connect me to his colleagues throughout the state, which helped me do some guest lectures. I like that better than being faculty, at least so far. I like being able to do my research at home and send out my findings remotely.”

“That sounds a lovely arrangement.”

“What about you?”

“Pardon?” Carol said.

“You said you have a passion for antiques and furniture. You must have studied something to become an expert in that field. Tell me more.”

“Well, I… I went to William and Mary. For art history.”

“That’s cool.”

And Therese meant it. Carol felt a little better.

“Pick out a sweater and let’s go before it gets too dark.”

Carol did just that. They got in Therese’s Wrangler and drove a quick ten minutes to Finger Lakes National Forest. Since it was past sundown, the gate for cars was closed, but no one else was around — there were no other cars. Therese grabbed the supplies and handed Carol a flashlight, then turned her own on.

“Follow me, and stick to the trail.”

Carol inhaled sharply.

“Alright.”

After a twenty minute walk, they reached the spot Therese liked. There already was a ring of rocks near the log, and Therese put down the bag and began searching for suitable sticks.

“Hold the light steady and follow me.”

She gathered sticks and placed them in the circle, then placed a fire starter in it and struck a match. The campfire exploded from the spark and crackled. They turned off the flashlights and Therese sat on the log. She patted the spot next to her. Carol sat down next to her. Therese poked a marshmallow on a thin stick and handed it to Carol, then did the same for herself.

“Have you roasted marshmallows before?” Therese said.

“I can’t say that I have.”

“Okay. Don’t put it _in_ the fire, or you’ll set it on fire and burn it. Just put it close enough to brown it.”

“Got it, champ.”

Therese playfully smacked Carol on the knee with the back of her hand. When the marshmallows were nice and toasty, they removed them from near the fire and squished them between the crackers and chocolate.

“Wait,” Therese said, and put a hand on Carol’s arm to stop her.

“Why?”

“It’s too hot. Wait for it to cool just a little bit.”

_She’s too kind_.

Carol bit into the s’more and closed her eyes. Heaven.

“I take it you like it, then?”

“Yes. It’s _divine_.”

They made a few more before they started to get stomachaches. They sat near the fire and warmed their hands. Carol grew chilly and put on Therese’s sweater, a navy blue one. She placed the cuffs of her sleeves near her face and breathed in hard. She liked the smell of Therese: vanilla and a hint of light perfume she couldn’t place. Therese leaned her body against Carol’s and closed her eyes.

“Don’t fall asleep on me,” Carol said softly.

“I won’t,” Therese said.

“Therese?”

“Yes, Carol?”

“What do you want from your life in five years?”

“Oh, no, the interview question,” Therese said.

Carol laughed.

“I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.”

“No, I don’t mind. Let me think for a minute.”

Carol thought about what her own answer might be. _Living with you and Rindy. Working in a furniture shop, maybe, or even having my own again. Being by your side, loving you. Would you love me, too? As much as you love looking up at the sky? Will I be as captivating as the stars for you?_

“I think maybe I’d be a regular at Cornell. A researcher or faculty, it doesn’t matter to me. But I love living here and Cornell’s not far from my house. This just… feels like home. I can’t imagine living any other place. Having traveled some more. Hopefully having visited Iceland by then! More camping. Perhaps being more well-known for my research, or discovering something new, a breakthrough. That would be cool.” _And having you by my side._

“More of the same? But better?” Carol said.

“I suppose so. That’s one way to look at it.”

Therese didn’t like to think of it that way. Carol sounded glum. But Therese couldn’t risk saying what she really wanted to say. Carol may have felt the same way, but she’s older, more experienced, and why would she pick someone like Therese, anyway? She always could have Abby, _did_ have Abby. She wouldn’t want anything serious with Therese. This was all just for fun.

“What about you?” Therese said.

“I don’t think about it much,” Carol lied, “Life becomes so much of the same after a certain point.”

“That sounds thrilling.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to sound that way.”

Therese buried her face in Carol’s neck. _Please don’t grow tired of me. I can’t go through another heartbreak._ Richard wasn’t someone she loved in the way he loved her, but she still cared for him, and when they split, he no longer wanted anything to do with her. He even enlisted in the Air Force to pursue his dream of becoming a pilot, something he held back on because, as he said, “of Therese.” But that wasn’t true. She never asked anything of him, and that was the problem. He gave and gave and she never took.

“Your perfume. It smells lovely,” Therese said.

Carol reached for Therese’s hand, and Therese gave it willingly. This was love, but they pretended it wasn’t. If only they weren’t so afraid of what stared them in the face, of what they knew to be true. They were so close, and yet, so far away from each other.

Their fingers intertwined with each other’s, and Carol stroked Therese’s hand with her thumb. Therese thought about kissing Carol’s neck; the mood was appropriate, but it would be awkward if rejection happened and they had to handle Carol staying overnight and possibly going on a road trip the next day. And Therese dealt with enough awkwardness from herself in her day-to-day life.

“Show me what you love,” Carol said.

“What?”

“Out here. Share it with me.”

They stood up and Carol hesitantly followed a little behind. Therese turned around and reached out for Carol’s hand.

“Trust me,” she whispered.

“I do,” Carol said.

Therese led her to a nearby stream where the evergreens parted and revealed the most beautiful sky Carol had ever seen.

“Lie down,” Therese said.

“Are you kidding me?” Carol said. _On this ground?_

“Do it. You wanted to see things how I see them, right? Do it.”

Carol obeyed and Therese lied down with her.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Therese said.

“Breathtaking,” Carol said.

They gazed in silence.

“What is your favorite spot to look at?” Carol said.

“Polaris. The North Star.”

“Why?”

“It guided generations of sailors and travelers. If you can find the North Star, you can orient yourself. You won’t get lost. She takes care of you.”

“Who?” Carol said.

“The cosmos.”

“She?”

“Yes. She is God.”

Carol looked at Therese, lying by her side.

“You didn’t peg me as someone religious,” she said.

Therese returned her gaze.

“Many people say I’m mysterious. They try to get to know me.”

“Does this bother you?”

“Yes. I don’t like people knowing too much about me. They could use it against me.”

_Who has hurt you so badly to have you believe this about the world?_

“Do you trust me?” Carol said.

“Yes. Yes, yes I do.”

They looked back up at the stars. Therese suddenly sat up when something odd caught her eye.

“What is it?” Carol said.

She couldn’t see it, or didn’t know what she was looking for.

“That. Up there.”

Therese pointed to the weird lights that hovered high up in the sky.

“The stars?”

“No! They’re not stars. That’s them.”

“ _Them_?” Carol said.

“The visitors. They’re observing us,” Therese said.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

“Carol! Don’t you see it with your own eyes?”

“I don’t believe in this.”

The craft escaped seemingly at light speed.

“I have to go back home,” Therese said.

“But we were having a good time!” Carol said.

“Stop it. We have to go.”

Carol grumbled. She helped Therese pack everything up and pour water over the fire. They got into the car and Therese drove too fast back to the house. Carol went into the kitchen and took a beer from the fridge, while Therese rushed to log into her computer.

 

_To: <trust_no1@mail.com>; <jfbyers@mail.com>; <tango_dancer@mail.com>; <theyrewatching@mail.com>_

_From: <tbelivet@mail.com>_

_Subject: Another sighting._

_Message:_

 

_Another sighting near the house, this time in Finger Lakes National Forest. Looked like the same craft. Anything new?_

 

_\- T_

 

Carol took the beer and headed for the guest room. She looked into the den when she reached it in the hallway. Therese was quickly typing at her computer and had several books open near her. What a fool to think she would mean anything more to Therese than a passing figure in her life. Therese’s first love would always be the sky and alien-chasing, and how could Carol compete with that? She felt trapped with only Therese’s car, but didn’t want to stay in the house, either. She went into the guest room and found a pair of more comfortable shoes (why Carol wore heels into a _forest_ , Therese couldn’t fathom, but old habits die hard). She laced up the sneakers but stayed in her dress, and left the house through the front door. Therese didn’t notice.

Across the dirt road was a wooden fence. It was a huge enclosure, probably several acres, and a small farmhouse could be seen in the distance. This was Therese’s closest neighbor. Up against the wooden fence were two white and black spotted cows. One cow poked the other with her nose. The other looked at the first and grunted, but licked her anyway. Carol reached out and the cows looked up at her curiously. She pet one of them on her muzzle. The cow grunted, pleased, and Carol gave a small smile.

“You must be best friends, aren’t you?” she said.

The cows, of course, didn’t answer.

She pet the other one and the first tried to push itself under her hand.

“Jealous, aren’t we?”

Carol tried to give equal attention to both of the cows. It dawned on her that the farmer would eventually slaughter them, and Carol felt sick in her throat and chest. She didn’t think of herself as a huge animal lover, but she didn’t want anything bad to happen to the cows. Yet she knew she couldn’t control what other people did in their lives.

“You take care of each other, you hear?” she whispered.

One of the cows mooed. Carol cried just a little bit. Everything was upsetting her lately and she couldn’t help it.

Therese came outside and saw Carol by the cows.

“Carol?”

“What?” she said.

A bite to her voice.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have behaved the way that I did. I got so excited, that I let it push you aside. I prioritized my work over you. That wasn’t very good of me, and I’m sure it was hurtful to you. Do you forgive me?”

Carol turned to face Therese. Therese could see the glimmer of tears on Carol’s face, and it broke her heart.

“Therese,” she said.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Therese,” Carol said, “Therese.”

What if she didn’t forgive her? What if everything was all over? The aliens would always be out there, but how much could Carol take, _would_ take?

“Please,” Therese said, “Please.” _I love you_.

They looked at each other in painful silence. Therese couldn’t take it anymore:

“Carol, you are so important to me. I think you think the same of me. I’m not sure. Please. Please forgive me. I said I wouldn’t hurt you, and I did. I don’t like that I did. Please let me stay.”

“Therese,” Carol said.

But this time it was different. It was desperate, it was a plea. _Don’t go, I don’t want you to go, I just don’t know how to be around you._ She ran up to Therese and grabbed her in a tight hug. Therese returned the act and cried as well. Carol, muffled, spoke near Therese’s ear:

“I forgive you. Do you forgive me?”

“For what?”

“For struggling to let you in. I want to. I am so difficult.”

Therese let go of Carol just enough to see her face, to look into her bright eyes. They held their embrace.

“You are perfect, Carol. I wouldn’t have you any other way. And I imagine I am difficult, too.”

“No, no,” Carol said.

She nestled her face against Therese’s and continued:

“You are perfect, too. You show me so many things I couldn’t dream are out there. I know I am taking too long. But please, keep sharing things with me. I want to live in your world.”

“Oh, Carol.”

They stayed this way until they felt too cold to remain outside. Therese noticed the sneakers when they entered the house.

“My, what a _lovely_ fashion choice,” she said.

Carol rolled her eyes.

“I couldn’t stand to be in heels any longer. And I didn’t want to get more dirt on them.”

“You are so proper. I bet you’re going to teach me how to be a lady someday.”

“Only if you want me to,” Carol said.

Therese looked at the carpet when she spoke.

“Are we going on the road trip tomorrow?”

“Do you want to?”

“Yes.”

“Then we will.”

“I want to drive. I have off-road tires. In case we run into any rough roads,” Therese said.

“It sounds like a deal, then,” Carol said.

They parted ways to their bedrooms and retired for sleep.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *X-Files theme music plays*

It was morning. Therese was packing a hardy backpack for the road trip. Carol still slept in the guest room, so Therese decided to start making breakfast: French toast with a dish of confectioner’s sugar and of course, genuine maple syrup; coffee (for Carol) and tea (for herself — Earl Grey, hot); a few slices of bacon; and tiny glasses of orange juice.

Carol awoke to the sumptuous smells with a smile. She stretched in bed, then put on her tartan robe and the slippers Therese had given her.

“My,” Carol said, “What a lovely way to wake up in the morning.”

Therese put the last few slices of French toast on the large plate in the middle of the table, and grabbed two smaller plates to set the table.

“Morning, sleepy-head,” she said.

_I could get used to this_. Both of them.

Carol sat down and Therese set her place first, then took utensils for herself.

“This looks wonderful. I’m starved. Bon appetit!”

Therese tried not to speak with her mouth full of bread, but it was still a tad muffled:

“Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, I did. Thank you. Did you?”

“A little. I was awake for some time before I could sleep,” Therese said.

It was meant as an off-hand comment.

“Why?”

“Hm? Oh, it’s just the way I am. I don’t sleep well usually,” Therese said, “Please don’t worry about it.”

She lifted the plate with the bacon and offered it to Carol. Carol politely declined, remembering the cows.

“So where should we go first?” Carol said.

“I don’t know. I was going to ask you that, actually. Did you have any place in mind?”

“West. Just, west. As far as we can go.”

Therese rested her hand under her chin and fiddled with the fork.

“Okay. We could head as west as we could in New York, then go south to go around the lakes?”

“That would be delightful.”

Therese nodded. They finished eating and Carol started to clear the table.

“Oh, no, don’t. You’re a guest,” Therese said.

“I insist,” Carol said.

Therese let her finish. Then:

“Do you want to use the shower first?”

“Because I’m a guest?” Carol said.

“Because I want to,” Therese said.

She wished she hadn’t called Carol a guest.

“Alright. I won’t take long.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll—”

“Be doing work,” Carol said.

“Yes.”

Carol walked to the bathroom and Therese, to the den. She wanted to work on something she knew would be easy, like summarizing research or organizing her star charts, but her mind floated away from her, unfocused. It wasn’t a feeling Therese liked. Work gave her a sense of purpose, a clear objective to achieve and the ability to set new goals. Without it, she didn’t know who she was or where she belonged. But Carol seemed just fine to experience each day without knowing the end goal of it. She trusted that any activity chosen would lead to something interesting, enjoyable — and if not, she was just fine in selecting another. Therese felt the obsessive need to stick with what was chosen once the decision had been made, _quitting is for losers, and only losers quit_.

Therese flipped the textbook next to her closed, and rubbed her eyes. It was a rare time that a lack of sleep was actually bothersome. She rolled the computer chair back and sat down in the armchair with her forehead in her hand and the elbow resting on the chair arm. She closed her eyes, resting them.

When Carol finished in the shower, she got dressed and walked to the den.

“Oh, my poor darling,” she whispered.

It was almost cruel to wake Therese. Carol knelt down and brushed some stray hair from Therese’s face. Therese slept with her lips slightly parted, her teeth and jaw clenched. It hurt Carol to see her this way. She wanted to scoop Therese into her arms and hold her close, _nothing will hurt you, my dear_. Carol lightly stroked Therese’s hand, the one that lay on her left knee. Therese closed her mouth and coughed a couple of times. Carol continued to stroke Therese’s hand.

“Therese, darling,” she said, “It’s time to wake up.”

“No,” Therese said in a graveled voice.

“Yes, my darling. We have to go on our road trip, remember?”

“Mmm.”

Therese took her hands and rubbed the sleep away from her face. She saw Carol, saw her face full of affection and warmth in her eyes, in her mouth.

“I was just, uh… resting my eyes,” Therese said.

Carol rolled her eyes and patted Therese on the knee.

“Okay, I’ll get ready.”

Therese slowly got up from the chair with Carol there to steady her, and walked into the bathroom. Carol packed — what else? — sandwiches for the road and moved all of their bags near the front door. Therese came out to the living room, dressed in a white short-sleeved buttoned shirt, and khaki shorts, with a black headband. Carol was wearing a red sundress and matching flats — still not quite appropriate attire, but definitely getting there.

“You look _lovely_ ,” Carol said.

Therese flushed.

“Thank you. So do you,” she said.

She took one last glance around the house.

“I think we’ve got everything.”

They carried the bags outside and began to load up the car. Therese stopped.

“Spooky!”

She called for the little black and white cat, and he galloped to her from the distance. He flopped down in the dirt and rolled back and forth on his back. Therese scrubbed his belly and spoke to him:

“You be good while we’re gone, you hear? I love you, you know. You’re the best cat in the whole wide world.”

Carol thought she heard Therese’s voice waver towards the end, so she knelt down and put her arm around the younger woman.

“He loves you, too,” she said.

Spooky flipped onto his feet and sniffed Carol, then brushed his body against her knees. Carol smiled and ran her nails along his spine, which earned her the cat elevator-butt.

“I think he really likes you, too,” Therese said.

“I’m glad. So do I.”

Carol rubbed Therese’s shoulder a few times, and they stood up. Therese blew Spooky a kiss.

“I’ll see you when I get back, buddy!”

He meowed and watched them. He wasn’t sad.

They got into the car and pulled onto the road. It took a few hours to reach the New York-Pennsylvania border, so at the first rest stop across the border they found, they stopped for a break. They ate sandwiches and snacks, and drank some water. Carol asked if Therese wanted a break from driving, and Therese said yes, so after stretching their legs, they switched places. Carol continued the drive. Therese had her feet pressed against her side of the dashboard, slouched a bit in her seat. Her fingers tapped on her kneecaps to the beat of the song:

 

_Speak to me, baby_

_In the middle of the night_

_Speak to me_

_Hold your mouth to mine_

‘ _Cause the sky is breaking_

_It’s deeper than love_

_I know the way you feel_

_Like the rains outside_

_Speak to me_

 

Carol felt the urge to ask Therese a question, one about life and death and about love and loss, about living and existing, but she didn’t even know what the question was that she wanted to ask Therese. Perhaps, it wasn’t so much a question as it was a feeling that she wanted to ask of Therese. But that was something Carol wasn’t well-versed in. She didn’t even know how to express it with a gesture. All could she manage was turn to look at Therese when they had hit a smidge of traffic on the highway.

Therese looked back at Carol. The instrumental part of the song still played. Therese could tell that Carol was trying to ask her a question; she saw it in her eyes, but what? What was Carol trying to communicate to Therese that she didn’t have the words for? Therese considered just asking Carol plainly about the topic, but she sensed Carol couldn’t have words for that, either, whatever the answer might be. Therese simply tried to communicate back to Carol, _Yes._ She didn’t know what the word was the answer to, but it just felt right. Even if it wasn’t the answer Carol was expecting, even if it wasn’t a yes-or-no question, yes always felt like a hopeful answer, an affirmative one. _Whatever it is, Carol, yes._

They reached Canton, Ohio later than they expected, but not terribly late. Carol parked the car in one of the marked spaces in the parking lot of a decent-looking motel, and they checked into separate rooms on the same floor.

In her room, Therese turned the television on for background noise while she changed into pajamas. She had no idea what was on the channel; she stopped watching television after her undergraduate days and found she didn’t really miss it all that much. Click. Click. Click. Click. Finally, Therese just turned it off. She paced around the room. It was too late to bother Carol and see if she was still awake, but without her work, Therese didn’t know what to do with herself. She went back to the car and took out the radio she kept in the emergency road kit, and brought it back to her room. After several adjustments, a clear station came in.

“Thrilling,” she said to herself.

The station was for the local forecast. She lied on top of the comforter like Jesus on the cross, and stared at the ceiling. So far, there were 48 and counting black speckles on the white ceiling tiles. And it was only 2:27 AM. Therese took some sharpened pencils from her bag and threw one up at the ceiling. It stuck. As did another, and another…

Carol had already washed her face and telephoned home to see how Abby was doing. She had already started reading the book Therese had given her, but couldn’t focus her mind, so she had tried to read more of the book she had currently been reading (Flannery O’Connor’s _A Good Man is Hard to Find_ ). She had gotten a bit further with that one, but still found herself unfocused. She had turned on the television, flipped through some channels, but still could not temper her restlessness. Carol had thought about going over to see if Therese was still awake (probably, definitely), but didn’t want to bother her; she was probably gazing at the sky and making notes or something (it was only partly cloudy that night). Carol walked around her room, then went to the car and took something out. Carol already had Therese’s CD player and earbuds; she had brought a few classical CDs and Therese said she should borrow the CD player for when she couldn’t sleep.

But that wasn’t what Carol wanted to listen to. She lied down over the comforter, put a CD in, and pushed the earbuds into her ears. With her arms crossed underneath her head, she closed her eyes and listened to the music that was so foreign to her, but home to Therese.

 

_Speak to me, baby_

_In the middle of the night_

_Pull your mouth_

_Close to mine_

_I can see the wind coming down_

_Like black night_

_So speak to me_

 

… _speak to me…_

… _speak to me…_

 

Carol woke up with one earbud still in her ear and the other nowhere to be found yet. The CD player was under her body somewhere and Carol tried to untangle herself from the wire and, well, herself. She rubbed her eyes and searched for a clock, but her eyes were too blurred still from sleep to read the time properly. She scrambled out of bed and stumbled a bit in her attempt to reach the door. With it open, she continued to sloppily rush down the hallway to Therese’s room, hopefully, and knocked several times.

Therese opened the door sleepily.

“Carol? What’s the matter?” she said.

“I — I don’t know,” Carol said.

She was frantic and in a way that Therese had not seen her act before. Something must have frightened her to the bone, but at 5:54 in the morning? The sun was just beginning to warm the sky and Therese had hoped to sleep at least another two hours. But she took Carol into her room and closed the door.

“What happened? Are you okay? Did you have a nightmare?”

Carol sat on the edge of the bed with her head in her hands, then looked up at Therese.

“I don’t know what it was. But it felt real, if it was a nightmare.”

Therese sat down next to her and placed her hand on Carol’s back, soothing.

“Talk to me. What did you see?”

“I saw… I don’t know what I saw, exactly. More like I _felt_ something,” Carol said.

She inhaled deeply and continued:

“It was… terror. I felt absolutely terrified. I don’t know why. I just remember _something_ being there. Like a — a shadow, or… I don’t know. Forget it, I’m not making any sense.”

Carol stood up and walked around the room as if to shake the memory from her mind. She looked up at the ceiling, the sky, for guidance. Instead —

“Therese?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sure there’s a logical reason to this —” Carol pointed at the pencils, “but I’m not interested in it at this hour.”

Therese tried to suppress a laugh.

“Some other time, then,” she said.

“I’m sorry to have woken you up and caused alarm.”

Carol walked to the door. Therese followed.

“No, no. I’m glad you came. Well, I mean, I’m not glad that you were scared, but I mean, actually —” Therese said.

“Shh,” Carol said.

She placed her index finger to Therese’s lips when she said this. Therese looked at Carol’s finger and this made her eyes cross. Carol moved her hand and patted Therese on the shoulder.

“Let’s get some more sleep before we hit the road again,” she said.

With that, she left. Therese closed the door, but leaned her back against it for a moment before she crawled back into bed. She rolled over once or twice to try and get comfortable. A pencil fell from the ceiling and hit the thinly-carpeted floor.

“Ugh.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who is this mysterious guy driving around in a black sedan smoking cigarettes?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a new XBox... sorry. And I've been caught up with my full-time job UGH ADULT LIFE.

It was 8:15 AM when Therese sat up in bed. She had hit snooze one too many times and her memory still dragged its feet from grogginess. A few pencils had fallen from the ceiling during the sleep, but most had stayed in place.

“Oh, yeah…” she said softly.

She got ready quickly — being used to living life on the road and campgrounds had its perks — and walked down the hall to Carol’s room.

“Carol? Are you awake?” Therese said as she knocked on the door.

“I’m in here!” Carol said.

Therese opened the door and Carol continued:

“Would you be a dear and, uh, fetch me my blue shirt? It’s on the suitcase on the bed.”

“Sure.”

She put her backpack down on the floor and shifted a few of the items in Carol’s suitcase until she found the shirt. The shower ran behind the closed bathroom door. Therese lifted the shirt to her nose and inhaled deeply. It smelled of something rosy, a pinch of cinnamon, and elegant. Therese folded it delicately. She noticed something shiny sticking out behind another blouse. It was a small pistol. The shower stopped.

“Hey, slowpoke,” Carol said from behind the door.

“Found it!”

Therese brought the button-up shirt to the bathroom door. Carol was barely covered in the front by a red tartan robe, her hair still wet. She took the shirt from Therese.

“Everything alright?” she said.

“Um, yeah,” Therese’s eyes habitually looking down for the floor but momentarily catching Carol’s state of undress. “I’m just, uh, suddenly starving.”

Carol smiled.

“Alright. Be out in a minute.”

She closed the door and Therese turned around, closing her eyes and deeply inhaling.

In no time, they were back in Therese’s Jeep, heading further west. Therese was driving and Carol handed her broken off bits of sandwiches and small snacks.

“Do you feel safe?” Therese suddenly said.

Carol laughed.

“What do you mean?”

“With me. I mean, you’d tell me if you didn’t? If you were and there was something… something I could do to help?” Therese said.

“You’re full of surprises, Therese.”

A beat.

“Therese, I’m not afraid.”

_Of anything?_

Therese wasn’t satisfied. She switched to driving one-handed, resting her cheek against her left hand, the elbow resting on the car door. Carol thought she saw a familiar-looking black sedan behind them, like the one that was across the street of the motel they had stayed at in Ohio, but black four-door cars have a tendency to blur together and all look alike. She decided not to say anything on the matter.

For an hour, they rode in silence, until a loud pop stirred them from their thoughts. The rear left side of the Jeep wobbled. Therese slowed down until it was safe to pull over to the side.

“Damn it,” she muttered.

She got out of the car and examined the flat tire. Carol was on her heels when she noticed the black car approaching them. She stood slightly in front of Therese as a measure of protection.

A man wearing a black suit and tie exited the vehicle. He was wearing black sunglasses and smoking a cigarette. He took a last drag from the cigarette and squashed it out on the asphalt.

“Excuse me, miss,” he said. He lowered his sunglasses.

“May I help you?” Carol said.

Therese looked up at Carol, then stood up from the flat.

“Just a flat, sir. I’ve got it, though. Thank you,” Therese said.

“Are you certain? I could help you with it; it would go faster with two people,” he said.

Carol rolled her eyes and almost suppressed an “ugh.”

“I’m sure. I’ve done this tons of times. I live out in the country so a girl has to get used to gettin’ dirty.”

Carol glared at Therese, _stop talking._ Therese missed the look, though.

“Ah. I see,” the man said.

He raised his sunglasses fully on the bridge of his nose and continued:

“Well, I hope you get to Chicago safely.”

The man started to turn around to get back in his car, but Carol’s words stopped him:

“How do you know where we’re going?”

He turned to face her.

“Where else would you be going on this road?”

With nothing more from either of the women, he continued to his car, entered it, and started the engine. Before he pulled back onto the main road, he removed a cigarette from the pack and lit it. Then, he was gone.

“Well, that was strange,” Therese said. She started to get the tools from the car to change the tire.

“Aren’t you worried?” Carol said.

“About what?”

“Therese! That guy was following us!”

“So were a lot of other cars. I didn’t notice.”

Carol folded her arms and leaned her back against the car.

“I’m sorry. I really didn’t notice. I’ll pay more careful attention,” Therese said.

She placed her hand on Carol’s shoulder when Carol hadn’t met her gaze. Carol looked her in her hazel eyes.

“Okay. I’m just so…” she said, thinking of the word she wanted to use.

“Afraid?” Therese said.

Carol didn’t say anything.

Therese leaned in closer and whispered with a smile: “I thought you weren’t afraid of anything?”

“Therese—”

“I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, Carol. I mean it.”

Carol wasn’t convinced, but she would have to be. There wasn’t anything more they could do for now.

“Help me with this tire. I’ll teach you how to be a strong, independent woman.”

“Who doesn’t need no man?”

“Yes,” Therese said with a laugh.

With the flat tire fixed, the women were back in the car and headed the rest of the way to Chicago. They weren’t put too far behind schedule, and Therese parked the Jeep in the parking lot of their next hotel.

Her gaze wandered about the posters and signs in the hotel lobby while Carol was speaking with the receptionist to make their reservation.

“Or, we do have the presidential suite, for a very attractive rate,” the receptionist said.

“Uhm, two standard rooms should be fine.”

“Why not take the presidential suite?” Therese said.

The receptionist put down her pen with a smile, and Carol turned around to look at Therese.

“I mean, if the rate’s attractive,” she added.

Carol looked back at the receptionist.

“The presidential suite, then,” she said.

In the room, the women sat on the carpet and shared the earbuds to the CD player. It was a song from Carol’s collection:

 

_I’ve done alright up to now_

_It’s the light of day that shows me how_

_And when the night falls, loneliness calls_

 

_Oh, I wanna dance with somebody_

_I wanna feel the heat with somebody_

_Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody_

_With somebody who loves me_

 

“Don’t blink!” Carol said.

Therese giggled. “Sorry!”

Carol was applying eyeliner and Therese struggled to keep her eyes open; they kept watering and threatened to ruin the perfect, sharp strokes of black.

“Okay, now for some lipstick,” Carol said. “Which would you like?”

Several tubes of red lipstick lay on display in front of Therese on the deep green carpet.

“I don’t know. I can’t tell the difference between them,” she said.

“Fine, let’s go with this one then, shall we?” Carol said with a laugh.

She carefully applied the bright, elegant red lipstick to Therese’s lips, then handed Therese a small mirror.

“What do you think?”

Therese studied her face in the mirror, angling her head different ways to see her face in various lights.

“Marvelous!”

“Now, would Mademoiselle be so kind as to apply to her pulse points only?” Carol said, handing Therese a small bottle of perfume.

She took the bottle and applied only a few drops to her wrists and rubbed them together to spread the rosy, cinnamon scent.

“Me, too!” Carol said. She extended her wrist and Therese put a few drops of the perfume delicately on Carol.

Carol rubbed her wrist against the side of her neck and smelled her wrist.

“Mmm, that smells _divine_. Here, smell it,” she said. She leaned forward, exposing her neck.

Therese swallowed and accepted the invitation. When she leaned away, their faces were too close for Therese’s comfort, and she quickly grabbed her glass of whiskey for a few hearty swallows. Carol looked away for a fraction of a second, then grabbed her own glass and raised it.

“To President McKinley!”

They both laughed and clinked the glasses together.

“Do you want some more?” Therese said, standing up.

“Yes, thank you, dear.”

She took Carol’s glass and walked across to the table to refill their glasses with more whiskey. Carol was still listening to the music in her half of the earbuds. The display on the CD player started to scramble and the music played at hyperspeed. Carol picked up the CD player and saw the scrambled display: it was rapidly cycling through all of the digits 0 through 9 in random order and the case was growing warmer. She jerked her hand back towards her body and dropped the CD player on the carpet.

“Shit!” Carol said.

“What’s the matter?” Therese said and turned around.

“Something’s wrong with the CD player. It just started going haywire.”

“What do you mean?”

Therese walked over to Carol and sat on the floor next to her. Carol took one of the whiskey glasses and took a quick gulp from it.

“It just, I don’t know. It was playing the music really fast and nothing made sense on the screen. Then it got too hot for me to hold onto it anymore so I dropped it,” she said. “Be careful,” she added when Therese reached to retrieve the CD player.

The display read normally and the music was playing at the normal speed. The case of the player felt cool to the touch.

“Well, nothing seems to be wrong with it now,” Therese said.

But Carol wasn’t convinced.

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I'm like this. D:

Carol lied next to Therese, deep in her slumber. It was 2:59 AM and Therese couldn’t sleep. She had rolled over quite a few times, and didn’t want to move around in bed and wake Carol (impossible; she slept as if she had been awake since the day she was born with no chance for respite). Carefully, Therese got out of bed and walked to the window. The city lights were far too bright for her to see the stars or anything else of interest. Still, she gazed at them, letting her mind drift into a vague cloud of emptiness.

In bed, Carol’s peace was disturbed. It was like a nightmare, but somehow _real_. A room bathed in darkness, with a bright spotlight directly over her body, splayed like the Vetruvian Man. Naked and vulnerable to whatever whims entered their minds. The whirring of a drill echoed from the void and Carol fought against the restraints.

“What are you going to do me?” she said.

They replied, but all Carol heard were clicks, like dozens of castanets. She couldn’t see their faces or tell precisely where in the void they stood, but she sensed the presence of at least five or six. The whirring grew closer.

“What are you doing!?” Carol said. She struggled harder against the metal restraints.

_Click click click click click click. Click click. Click click click._

“Therese! Therese, where are you? Help me!”

“Carol, Carol! What’s wrong?” Therese said.

Therese was by Carol’s bedside in an instant. Carol had started thrashing about in bed when she screamed for Therese in her sleep, and it snapped Therese out of her hypnotized state staring out the window. Carol wouldn’t or couldn’t wake up, so Therese shook her until she opened her eyes.

She was crying and gasping for air. She clutched onto Therese’s body and pulled her on top of her lap, sobbing. Therese caressed Carol’s hair and gently rubbed Carol’s back.

“What happened? What did you dream?”

“It wasn’t a dream,” Carol said, “It was real.”

“What was?” Therese said.

“They were going to operate on me. Experiment on me. They took me and I couldn’t see anything. I didn’t know where you were.”

“Who did?”

“I… I don’t know. All I know is that there were lots of them and I was strapped down on a cold, metal table.”

Therese continued to rub Carol’s back and hair.

“It’s okay, now. You’re here with me. I won’t let anything bad happen to you, Carol.”

“But you weren’t there,” Carol whispered.

What Carol experienced troubled Therese. Carol couldn’t have imagined all of that by herself, but what was Therese supposed to do to prevent it from happening again? The only thing she could think of was to contact her D.C. friends, but there was only so much they could do without physically being here. She decided she’d go on a computer in the hotel’s office depot in the morning to write them — maybe they would have advice she could follow. She didn’t want to leave Carol by herself while it was still dark.

Carol had calmed down, but still held Therese. Neither one minded. They remained this way until Therese untangled her arms from Carol and whispered, “I’ll be right next to you, Carol.” She lied down next to Carol. Her arms wrapped around Therese instantly, pulling her closer. Therese returned the gesture and the two women fell into a peaceful sleep.

 

~

 

While Carol was at the front reception checking out, Therese was in the office depot at a computer, typing away.

 

… _What would they want with her? Have you experienced an influx of stories like this lately? I’m just so worried they’ll take her again and I won’t be able to bring her back this time. Please help me in any way you can. We’re headed to Iowa next. I’ll try to write when we get to our hotel — don’t know yet what town we’ll end up in. Depends if we make good time on the road. If there are no computers there, I’ll call you, Agent Mulder, at work and leave a message with the hotel number._

_Thanks in advance guys._

 

_\- T_

 

Therese sent her email to her four colleagues in D.C. and logged off the computer. She met up with Carol in the lobby.

“Do you want me to drive?” she said.

“No. I’ll be fine. I just need to remind myself of what normal feels like,” Carol said.

They were making good time heading west. Carol drove with the extra focus one applies when one is trying to not let their mind drift to unpleasant thoughts. It didn’t go unnoticed in Therese.

“Did you love Harge? At one point, I mean?” Therese said.

“I did,” Carol said, “He was always there for me, ready to protect me if I needed him to. He felt like my rock. I know it seems as if I have myself all put together, but… I was a whirlwind and he was my rock, grounding me. Making sure I didn’t get swept away in the tornado.”

Carol smiled. She remembered when she first realized she loved Harge, when they were young and his stoicism was gentle introspection and seriousness. When he didn’t have much of a temper, unless he had heard of someone making Carol’s life hell, then all bets were off. He would go to the ends of the earth for her, which was his blessing and his curse. She remembered when she used to playfully tease him when he wouldn’t laugh at one of her jokes because “I don’t understand how that’s funny, though” even though Abby would’ve certainly laughed at it; she laughed at anything, especially when she’d challenge Carol to a burping contest when they were kids. And in spite of herself, Carol would eventually participate in the contest with Abby, every time.

Her thoughts drifted to Abby: how she used to be an upstanding, polite little girl until they met and Abby’s antics had corrupted all of that for awhile. Abby didn’t care about anyone else’s opinion and Carol had always admired that about her friend. She remembered when they had gone exploring alone in the woods when they were kids and had gotten lost; Abby was doggedly determined that every next path was “the way out” and Carol eventually just sat in the dirt and cried. She remembered when they did finally make it out safely, how her mother had been so worried and relieved she kept hugging, then screaming at Carol. Her smile faded, and Therese interrupted her thoughts:

“You’re either the rock or the storm.”

“Hm?”

“In relationships, I think. One person who is the rock can be the storm in a different one.”

“And which do you think you are?” Carol said.

“The storm,” Therese answered without hesitation.

“Really?”

“You thought I’d say the rock?”

“You seem more like a rock to me,” Carol said.

Therese tilted her head curiously.

“What I mean is, you are logical, scientific. Rocks are grounded, realistic. Science is based on facts. You’re a rock.”

“No I’m not. I’m the storm. I believe in extraterrestrial life. _Intelligent_ life out there. That one day will answer our messages and visit us, if they haven’t already. Most scientists think that’s full of shit. That’s not logical at all… to them, at least. I can’t be the rock. My mind has always been a raging storm.”

Carol mulled this over. Rolled these thoughts over like a chewy piece of candy, sucking every last bit of flavor out of it. Therese spoke again:

“With Richard, he thought I was his rock, but I was the storm. And he was the storm, and it can’t work out if both people are out of control. The waves have nothing solid to crash into.”

“Did you love him?” Carol said.

“I don’t think it was love. I was fond of him. I liked his company but he liked me far more than I liked him. I think he was hoping that I would sort of ‘catch up’ to him, that I would grow to love him like he loved me. But I just couldn’t.”

Therese turned her head to look out of the window. Carol noticed. She shifted her left hand on the steering wheel so that she could drive one-handed, and placed her right hand on Therese’s shoulder. She gave Therese a small squeeze. Therese lifted her left hand and placed it over Carol’s. She gave Carol’s hand a soft stroke with her thumb, then returned her hand to cover her left knee again. Carol withdrew her right hand and drove with both hands again. They arrived to Waterloo in comfortable, introspective silence.

The hotel they checked into was small and was the only building that was visible on this stretch of the road. Carol spoke with the receptionist to reserve them a shared room and Therese scoured the lobby for a computer. She didn’t see anything remotely technologically advanced except for a payphone in the corner. Therese looked back at Carol. She had time to make a quick call.

“Hello? Fox Mulder, please.”

“Just a moment.”

His phone rang and rang but he didn’t answer.

“This is Fox, leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.” _Beep_.

“Agent Mulder, this is Therese. There isn’t a computer or anything more advanced than this payphone. We’re staying at the Shaker Inn in Waterloo, Iowa. The number for this phone is… 319-555-7543. Or call the reception desk I guess if you want to leave a message. We’re staying here only for one night. I’ll call or write at our next location.”

She looked back and saw Carol was finishing up.

“Gotta go. Thanks.”

Therese rejoined Carol in the main area of the lobby.

“Making a phone call?”

“What? No,” Therese said, “Ladies’ room.”

They went up to their room. Carol went into the bathroom to shower and Therese changed into her navy blue robe. She flopped onto her back on the bed. There was a coin machine attached to the side of the bed and Therese propped herself up on one elbow to examine it. The machine didn’t contain any useful information except that whatever would happen would cost 25 cents. Carol liked to take long, hot showers, so Therese figured, eh, what the heck? She inserted a quarter into the slot and the bed immediately began to vibrate violently.

“Whoa!” she said. She lied back down and stretched her arms to their full extension horizontally.

“Oo-oo-ooh y-y-yessss.”

By the time Carol had come out of the bathroom in her tartan robe, Therese was inserting her third quarter into the machine.

“What in the—?” Carol said.

“Th-the M-m-magi-i-ic F-f-fing-g-gers!” Therese said.

“This is just silly!” Carol crossed her arms.

When the machine had stopped a few minutes later, Carol sat at the foot of the bed. Therese sat up and crossed her legs.

“It felt so good, Carol. You should try it.”

Carol placed a hand on one of Therese’s knees and with her thumb, stroked it.

“Is that so?”

They felt the shift in the atmosphere.

“Yes,” Therese said. She leaned closer to Carol.

“Do you think this will help keep me safe?” Carol said, with a sly smile. She, too, leaned in.

“Shake all the bad dreams right outta you.” Therese placed a hand on Carol’s.

Carol took her free hand and placed it against the back of Therese’s head, burying her fingers in the woman’s soft brown hair, caressing it. Therese breathed in sharply. She took her hand off of Carol’s and gripped the tartan robe. It was the answer to Carol’s question. They closed the gap between their faces and kissed. Carol pulled away about an inch from Therese’s lips, but Therese closed the gap again. _Yes._

They separated for a moment. Carol untied the front of her robe. Therese didn’t look away.

“Take me to bed,” she said quietly.

Therese laid on her back and Carol opened the woman’s robe. She reached for the bedside lamp but Therese stopped her.

“No, don’t. I want to see you.”

Carol slid out from her own robe and regarded Therese’s body. Here was this incredibly brilliant astrophysicist, brighter than any star in the galaxy, and yet she was nervous. This was all new for Therese. Complex equations probably didn’t bother her in the slightest, but people, _people_ frightened and confused her, and being this close to one, to someone she had feelings and affection for, she was —

“You’re trembling,” Carol said, “I never looked like that.”

But didn’t she know that Carol was nervous, too? No, she was the rock, because Therese was the storm. But Carol felt like she was the storm and Therese was her rock. Carol didn’t have anything figured out, that was Therese, the logical one. The logical one who had her head up in the clouds dreaming of space and stars and aliens. What did that make Carol, then? The one with her feet always firmly planted on the ground, the one with the big dreams and the small voice that said _that won’t work_ and _try another way_. Was she truly the rock after all?

Therese’s hand reached up to meet Carol’s descending face. They kissed passionately. Carol broke their lips apart to kiss Therese’s neck, then chest, then lower, every inch of skin she could mark with love. Therese tangled her fingers in Carol’s hair. She never felt this way when Richard had kissed her in any of those same places. She felt her flesh on fire, like nuclear fusion, like a new star being formed. Carol drew her face up from between Therese’s legs and lay side-by-side with Therese. She brushed her fingers against Therese’s cheek.

“My angel,” she whispered, “Flung out of space.”

The women kissed again and continued their exchange of energy.

But they were not alone.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst feat. Cigarette Smoking Man

_And even though our love is doomed_

_Even though our love is doomed_

_Even though our love is doomed…_

_You’re the only thing worth fighting for._

_You’re the only thing worth dying for._

 

Therese woke up with barely any of the blankets covering her body. Carol had them bunched and twisted around her like a wrinkled floral dress. Therese smiled and scooted closer to Carol. She put her arm over Carol’s abdomen and kissed the back of her shoulderblade. _Would you hear me if I said it now?_

Carol was at peace, at least, in this moment. Therese trailed the tips of her fingers along Carol’s skin. She went too far when she reached Carol’s neck: Carol sleepily swatted at Therese’s fingers, making her giggle.

“Is that you?” Carol said.

“Yes!”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought it was my hair or something.”

Therese kissed Carol’s shoulder again, and Carol rolled over to face Therese.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Carol said and took Therese’s face in her hand.

“Sunshine,” Therese whispered.

Carol laughed a little, then kissed Therese’s forehead.

“What can I say? You light up my sky,” she said.

“Stop,” Therese said, meaning the opposite.

“Your face is so flushed right now!” Carol booped Therese’s nose with her finger, then sat up.

“Do you want some coffee? I’ll make a pot,” she said.

“Yes, please,” Therese said. She covered her face up to her eyes with the blankets. Carol mussed Therese’s hair, then got out of bed to prepare the coffee.

 

~

 

“You the folks in 42?” the receptionist said.

“Yes, we’re checking out,” Carol said.

“Got a phone message for ya. Are you, uh —” she referenced the notepad “— Dr. Belvet?”

“No, no. That would be—”

“I have a message?!” Therese said. She seemed to have appeared as if she had been summoned by the incorrect pronunciation of her name.

“Yes, but he didn’t leave his name.”

“I know who it is. What did he say?”

“He said he’s coming to meet you and he needs you to tell him where you’re going next,” the receptionist said.

“He — what? Wow… wow!”

“That’s all he said. You’re a doctor?”

Therese was still absorbing what she had just learned. Special Agent Fox Mulder was going to meet her to help protect Carol. Wow. Carol answered the receptionist’s question instead:

“Well, _actually_ , she’s an astrophysicist. She recently gave a lecture at New York University.”

“Well, I’ll be danged! Well you folks take care and uh, good luck with your meeting with this… whoever this fellow is.”

“Thank you!” Therese said. She was the first to exit the hotel.

When they reached the Jeep, Carol spoke:

“Therese, what’s going on? Who are you meeting? Tell me what’s happening.”

“Okay, but —” Therese leaned closer to Carol and lowered her voice, “—we have to be careful that no one else knows.”

She looked around them, but couldn’t see anyone. A man, dressed sharply in a black suit and tie, was hidden behind the side of the hotel. He finished his cigarette and promptly started another one. He watched Carol and Therese as they spoke next to Therese’s Jeep.

“Okay,” Carol said.

“I’ve been corresponding for a year or two with someone who works in the FBI on unsolvable cases called X-files. He’s an expert in paranormal and supernatural activity. His name is Fox Mulder. I’ve also been talking with his associates who call themselves ‘The Lone Gunmen;’ they are also experts in these kinds of things. I reached out to them when you had that experience the other night, hoping they might have some kind of answer or way to prevent it from happening again. I wrote them an email but then I called Agent Mulder when we checked into the hotel yesterday.”

“The FBI? You told the FBI about my nightmare?”

“But wasn’t it… not really a nightmare, was it?” Therese said.

“And now the _FBI_ is coming out to meet us to do…? What, exactly?” Carol said.

“Carol.” It wasn’t frustration or anger.

“Therese.” It was frustration, one of many things.

The two women stood staring at each other for a beat. Then:

“I have to make a phone call. I forgot,” Therese said. She tossed Carol the keys and walked back to the payphone inside the hotel. The man smoking the cigarettes quickly ducked behind the corner again and disappeared. Carol twisted around to watch Therese speedwalk to the hotel. When Therese was out of her sight, she sighed and unlocked the car, getting in the driver’s side. She turned the ignition and pulled the car up to the front doors of the hotel, idling. Therese exited the hotel a few minutes later, and walked up to Carol’s side of the car.

“I want to drive,” she said.

“Okay,” Carol said. She got out of the car and walked to the passenger side instead.

Therese drove too fast on the highway heading for Minneapolis. For the first hour, Carol was afraid to say something, or anything at all. She had smoked one cigarette after another during that hour, and then started rationing herself after realizing she only had three left in the pack. Therese hadn’t put on any music, and Carol thought that if she extended her hand to the radio, she might be electrocuted by telepathy. But the silence was like knives, piercing her like Saint Sebastian. She wanted nothing more than to apologize to Therese and grasp her in a fierce hug. But Therese was still a cactus at the moment. So Carol turned her attention elsewhere, and gazed out of the window at the dull scenery they passed.

She remembered times when she had apologized to Harge when he had been the one to hurt her feelings, simply because she couldn’t stand the thick tension and sour feelings between them. She remembered times when Abby had crossed her early in their friendship, and Carol swallowed the sting and the pain, afraid that Abby wouldn’t like her anymore or wouldn’t want to be her friend anymore. She remembered when she had to break things off with Abby, when Harge made her choose between them and she didn’t want to, _couldn’t_ choose between her husband, and her best friend and lover, and how dare he and how could he make her make a choice like that? But it wasn’t just for him he said, it was for their child’s sake, too; you don’t want to break up our family now do you? And she would do anything for Rindy, though they hadn’t known each other just yet, Carol only just knowing the idea of who Rindy might be in nine months. And Abby, dear Abby was so kind to still be friends with Carol after the affair was over; _oh stop it, you nitwit, I will always be your friend no matter what happens._ Carol ached to hear Abby’s voice telling her everything was going to be all right. She sighed.

Therese took one hand off the steering wheel and placed it in Carol’s hand. She gently squeezed. Carol whipped her head to look at Therese. She squeezed Therese’s hand back. Therese chewed on her bottom lip.

“Do you want to stop for lunch?” she said.

“Yes, I would,” Carol said.

“Okay.”

They pulled into the next rest area they spotted along the way. There were a few benches outside, so they took their sandwiches to an empty bench and sat down. For the first few minutes, they ate in silence. Carol smoothed imaginary wrinkles in her coral pink dress and spoke:

“Therese, I’m sorry. I was horrible to you earlier, and I really hurt your feelings. I know you are only trying to help in the best way you know how. Do you forgive me?”

“Alright,” she said, “Yes.”

What each of them really wanted to say burned their throats, and so, they didn’t speak freely after all.

“Will you let me make it up to you?” Carol said.

Therese tilted her head.

“Not like that!” Carol hissed.

“Oh, _well then_ …” Therese let her sarcasm hang there for a moment, then said, “What did you have mind?”

“I don’t know. I’m open to suggestions.”

Therese checked their surroundings but lowered her voice, anyway:

“I have an idea: why don’t you read something aloud while we’re in bed?”

“Really?” Carol tried to hold back but it still came out too thick. Therese looked at her sandwich when she spoke:

“Yes.”

Carol leaned in so Therese could hear her whisper:

“Oh, my angel. Yes, I will read to you tonight.”

A beat. Then:

“Are you afraid?”

“Hm?” Carol said. Her mouth was filled with a large bite of her sandwich.

“Of… you know. What’s been happening.”

Carol stared ahead of her, rather than look at Therese, and spoke:

“I told you earlier, the last time you asked. I’m not afraid, Therese.”

_Of anything? Don’t lie to me. You can be afraid. It’s okay. I said I would protect you, and I will._

“I am,” Therese said.

“Don’t be.”

“I can’t help it. I feel useless, like there isn’t anything I do to help or offer you anything.” Therese had started to cry.

Carol set her sandwich in her lap and twisted her torso to face Therese. She set her hands on Therese’s shoulders firmly.

“You don’t have to worry about me. It’s not your fault. Alright?”

She wiped away Therese’s tears and gave her a stern look. _That’s that._ Therese coughed and rubbed the rest of the tears away. Carol resumed eating her sandwich, but kept an eye on Therese. They finished lunch in silence and walked back to the car. Carol felt a strange sense that the black, four-door sedan parked further down the same row was familiar, but she told herself that it couldn’t possibly be the same car from when they had the flat tire. She couldn’t see who was inside of it, if anyone was, so she tried to shake the sensation from her mind and body.

But not long after they hit the road again, it was behind them, in the distance.

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> waddup it's muldo and skuly

An instrumental track played from Therese’s mix CD. It was haunting, something one would play at a Halloween party, and featured a rhythmic bass beat, pulsing like a heartrate, with wailing synthesizers composing the main melody. Carol kept glancing between the CD player connected to the car stereo with the auxiliary cord, and the black, four-door sedan that was driving a little bit behind them. It was like living though a real-life episode of _Are You Afraid of the Dark?_ or _Goosebumps_ , terrible shows that Rindy was far too young to be watching yet “everyone gets to see them, Mommy!” So Carol relented, though even _she_ sometimes couldn’t stomach to watch them — how could her precious six-year old girl not go to bed with nightmares? _She’s going to grow up to be just like Therese, probably,_ Carol thought. _That would be nice… What would Rindy think of Therese? Would she like her? Would Therese like Rindy? Imagine what they could learn from each other…_

Therese chewed away the skin on her lips with her teeth. She, too, watched the black car behind them. _If I say something, I’ll just make Carol even more afraid. I have to take care of this myself._

“Ow!” Therese struck blood. She pressed her lips together hard and held them that way for a minute or so to stop the blood from pooling into one large droplet on its surface.

Carol looked at Therese, then back to the window. Therese’s extra turns and detours down side roads didn’t fall unnoticed on Carol. She wondered what hotel Therese was taking them to. What this guy from the FBI might be like. She pictured a tall, muscular man in a black suit and tie with black sunglasses on, saying, “Ma’am, that’s classified information” to every one of her questions. Maybe he wouldn’t be anything at all like that, if he and Therese were correspondents for so long. _What’s his deal coming out here to meet us? What’s in it for him? Oh, right, he studies aliens, too._ But she didn’t have anything she could really help him with. She never saw what they looked like, or couldn’t remember if she had ever seen them, at least. _Have others seen what I have seen? Or is it all just a bunch of baloney, the same old stuff everyone claims to have seen — UFOs, dancing lights, and little green men with large teardrop-shaped heads?_ If it wasn’t for the fact that it felt _so real_ , Carol would have brushed it aside as just a few weird dreams. Maybe they were just weird dreams. Elaborate and visceral, but just dreams. Maybe.

The black sedan disappeared from sight and didn’t appear for over twenty minutes. Therese began taking more direct roads again. Dark thunderclouds rolled overhead.

“How much longer, darling?” Carol said.

“Almost there.”

It was 6:30 PM, but the ominous clouds made it look more like midnight. On the stereo’s clock display, the digits began rapidly and randomly cycling, 0 through 9. Carol did a double-take, then checked her wristwatch to confirm. The hour and minute hands on her watch were doing faster laps than an Olympic runner. Lightning bolted across the sky and a thick, fast downpour drenched the outside. Therese had to slow down to compensate for the storm. When the clocks stopped freaking out, Carol spoke:

“Stop the car!”

“What?”

“Stop right now! Pull over!”

Therese obeyed.

“Why?”

“From here to about… I’d say the last quarter mile or so, maybe a little more, the clocks were freaking out.”

“No,” Therese said.

“What does that mean?” Carol had to shout over the thunder that roared simultaneously.

“Lost time!”

“What?”

“Check your watch! It should be stuck at whatever time it started happening.”

Carol looked at her wristwatch. 6:31 PM. She showed it to Therese.

“But how is that possible? We were definitely driving for—”

“—Five or ten minutes? Yeah, I know. That’s what lost time is. It stopped for us while we drove through the bend in anti-gravity.”

“This isn’t right, at all,” Carol said. She shook her head as if she could shake away the strange occurrences from ever happening again.

“Hey,” Therese said. She turned around in her seat to fully face Carol now, and put her hand on Carol’s shoulder. Carol didn’t look at Therese’s face; instead, she focused on the steering wheel so she was still sort of looking in Therese’s direction.

“It’s going to be okay. I am not going to let _anything_ happen to you, understand? Agent Mulder and I are going to figure out a way to keep you safe.”

Carol exhaled loudly.

“Alright.”

 

~

 

“They’re late,” the short redheaded woman said.

“Would you hold your horses? They probably got caught in this storm. They’re driving in from Iowa,” the tall, dark-haired man said. Still, he paced the windows of the hotel lobby that faced the street.

“I just don’t see what makes this case special. Or an X-file, really.”

“The woman gets abducted and experimented on several times and you don’t see how this is an X-file?” He laughed.

“We don’t even know if any of that is true, Mulder.” Scully folded her arms and looked away.

“They’ll show up. I know they will.”

“Oh, Mulder, can’t we do this in the morning? I’m tired and I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast, and all I had was a cream cheese bagel, and it wasn’t even real cream cheese, it was _light_ cream cheese!”

“No! It happens at night and we need to be there when it does. But if you’re hungry then go grab something to eat. Here,” he said, and gave her a folded five dollar bill.

“With _this_?”

“Ugh,” he said and gave her another five, and added: “I’ll wait here. You go.”

A beat. Scully spoke:

“Do you want me to bring you back anything?”

“No, no, you go. I’ll wait here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He was already looking back out of the windows at the downpour.

“Okay. Catch up with you later,” she said. She exited the hotel, unfolding her umbrella and walking down the block to the corner diner.

 

~

 

“Excuse me?” Therese said.

“Huh?”

Mulder had fallen asleep in one of the lobby armchairs. Even though it was only a quarter after 7, he had been in a deep slumber.

“Are you Fox Mulder?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. He pulled out his ID to show Therese and Carol, and spoke again: “I’m guessing you’re Dr. Belivet?”

“Please call me Therese,” she said, “Yes, and this is Mrs. Carol Aird.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Carol said, and shook Mulder’s hand.

“How about you get settled in and we chat in about a half hour?” he said.

Therese looked to Carol for confirmation before agreeing.

“Alright, my room’s 622, just knock in about a half hour when you’re ready. I’ll go get my partner, Agent Scully.”

“Oh, there’s two of you?” Carol said.

“Carol!” Therese hissed.

“Don’t worry, they’ll get along _great_ ,” Mulder said to Therese. He left the hotel, and called Scully on his large cell phone. Carol and Therese went up to their room to put down their luggage and relax for a few minutes.

“Scully,” she said.

“Hey, where are you?”

“Over at the diner at the end of the block. Are they here?”

“Yeah, but I told them to meet us in my room in a half hour. I’ll meet you at the diner.” _Click._

Mulder found Scully with her napkin tucked into collar of her shirt, stained with barbecue sauce from her sandwich. There was a spot of sauce to the right of her lips. He took his thumb and wiped it away.

“Someone’s been eatin’ good,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Can I have a bite?”

“You said you didn’t want anything.”

“Just one,” he said. He held up his thumb and forefinger to show just how little of a bite he wanted. “Please?” And there was the pout, too.

“Oh, fine, here.” Scully handed him her sandwich, but instead of taking it in his own hands, he leaned forward to take the bite.

“A _little_ bite!” she said.

“Sorry,” he said, muffled from the pulled pork.

“Waiter?” Scully said, and raised her stained fingers to call his attention.

 

~

 

In their hotel room, Therese fiddled with the camera Carol had given her. Carol stared out of the window, looking at nothing in particular. They were on the ninth floor — nothing much to look at except other buildings and the waxing moon. _Click._

“What was that?” Carol said, turning around.

“Sorry. You looked beautiful standing there,” Therese said.

“No, don’t apologize.”

“Do you want to see?” Therese held out the camera.

“No, no. I probably don’t look very good,” Carol said.

“What? Carol, you always look good!”

Carol smiled appreciatively. She turned her attention back to the window until it was time to meet with the FBI agents.

“So tell me what’s been going on, Mrs. Aird,” Mulder said. He was sitting on the edge of the bed. Scully was standing next to him with her hands on her hips. Carol sat in the armchair across from Mulder, and Therese stood behind Carol, occasionally looking out of the window or around the room, but still listening.

“Please, call me Carol,” she said. “I’m afraid I don’t really have much I can tell you.”

She told him about the instances of the digital clocks and watches flipping out; their experience of lost time on the way to the hotel; her sensation of being on a metal examining table surrounded by darkness but having a spotlight shining above her and hearing the clicking language; and the overwhelming feeling of terror she felt but couldn’t quite place. Mulder asked if there was anything else odd, and Carol and Therese looked at each other.

“Well, there is something else, but it’s not paranormal,” Therese said.

“What is it?” Scully said.

“Someone has been following us for the past few days. I don’t know who he is, but he wears a suit and tie and drives a black sedan. And he smokes a lot.”

“Dammit!” Mulder said, standing up. He walked up to the window, then turned around sharply towards the others.

“But what would he want with them?” Scully said.

“I don’t know! What does he want with any of us? To screw with us!”

“Mulder, calm down.”

“Who is he? What do you know about him?” Carol said.

Scully looked to Mulder in deference. _Should we?_

Mulder ran his hand against his hair, sighed, and spoke:

“He’s not a good guy. And he obviously knows something about you, I’m guessing it’s Carol, who he thinks is important. He wouldn’t be tailing you for nothing.”

Carol covered her mouth and spoke more to herself than to anyone else, “What if he’s harmed Rindy?”

Therese put her hand on Carol’s shoulder.

“No, no, I don’t think that’s it,” she said.

“Who?” Scully said.

“What should we do?” Therese said.

“I don’t think you should be driving by yourselves anymore. We should put you in protective custody,” Scully said.

“Agent Mulder?” Therese said.

“Yeah, sorry, Therese. At least for tonight, Scully?”

“Yes.”

“Alright. Should we meet in the morning?” Therese had taken over speaking for both her and Carol at this point.

“I think so. We can figure out where to go from here in the morning,” Mulder said.

“Okay. Thanks for your help, Agents.”

“No, no problem. Scully, do you want to take the first shift?”

She gave him a look.

“Okay, I’ll take the first shift. I’ll be up in about—” he checked his watch, “—two hours or so. Sound good?”

“Yes. See you then,” Therese said. She stood up, and gave Carol a short pat on the shoulder. Carol also stood up, and they left for their own hotel room.

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anxiety ft. danger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPOILER ALERT: If you have not seen S4 of The X-Files in its entirety (and probably the first few episodes of S5), do NOT read this chapter. There are spoilers about a major story arc involving Scully during these seasons.
> 
> Probably as the story goes on from here, there will be more explicit spoilers for TXF. Read at your own risk.

Carol stood with her back to the rest of the hotel room and smoked a cigarette. She leaned forward on her other hand, rested on top of the dresser. Therese hung back for a few minutes, looked around the room, knowing she should say something but also knowing there were no words that could make the situation any better. So instead, she came up behind Carol and wrapped her arms around the woman’s middle. At Therese’s touch, Carol turned around and grasped onto her with the same fierceness Rindy grasped her fleece teddy bear every night in bed. Therese rubbed Carol’s back.

“I just don’t know,” Carol whispered. “I just don’t know what to do.”

Therese cupped Carol’s cheeks and kissed her tenderly. Carol squeezed Therese in another hug, then walked to the bathroom. She turned the taps on; she hated getting in the shower and realizing the water was still cold. Therese followed her into the bathroom.

“Hey, I thought I was using this john,” Carol said.

Therese smiled. It was as if Carol never noticed her dimples until this very moment. She wished she could capture this feeling and moments like these, stick them in clear jars and seal the lids, and preserve them this way for the rest of her life, instead of letting other feelings and other memories that surrounded these to spoil them.

“But I guess I could let you in,” she said.

First Carol went into the shower, then Therese. Carol wet her hair, and Therese stood there like she had stood in the hotel room just a few minutes before, uncertain and feeling alien and foreign. She ventured a guess by taking the shampoo bottle before Carol could.

“May I?”

“Oh,” Carol said, “Sure.”

She let Therese lather the shampoo into her hair. The massaging felt good.

“You are _divine_ , darling.”

“I try,” Therese said.

“Here, let me, now.” Carol took the bottle and began to shampoo Therese’s hair. “Why are you so tense?”

“I don’t know. I can’t help it.”

“But you’ve always been this way?”

“Yes.”

They rinsed the shampoo out.

“You’re young. Relax,” Carol said, “Don’t waste your years worrying over everything. You’ll wake up one day and realize you haven’t lived at all, because you spent so much time worrying.”

But there is so much that is worth worrying about, Therese wanted to say. Like grant money and getting publications accepted and the consequences of our actions for future generations. Or consequences of actions in one’s own life. And if you aren’t worrying about those things, then you aren’t being careful enough, and you could make a mistake that could cost you everything. And some mistakes can’t be fixed.

Therese grabbed Carol’s hand and intertwined their fingers.

“Don’t,” she said.

“Don’t what?”

“I don’t know. Just don’t. Anything. Don’t.” She squeezed Carol’s hand hard.

“Then I won’t,” Carol said, and placed her free arm around Therese’s body. They kissed, but it wasn’t tender; instead, it was desperate. And they kissed and held and caressed each other until the water began to twinge with coldness, and Carol broke free first to finish the shower.

She dried her hair with a towel, and Therese was in her polka dot pajamas and navy blue robe, staring out of the window.

“Do you still want to read tonight?” Therese said.

“Only if you want me to,” Carol said.

“I only want to if you want to.”

“You’re in a funny mood.”

Therese said nothing, so Carol spoke again:

“What are you thinking? Do you know how many times a day I ask you that?”

“Sorry. What am I thinking? That I don’t know what I want or how to say no to anything—”

“Don’t do this.”

“—And how could I when I always say yes to everything?”

“ _Therese_. It’s not your fault.” Carol paused between each word, emphasizing them. She thought about putting a hand on Therese’s shoulder, or giving her a hug from behind and resting her chin on the top of Therese’s hair, but she didn’t.

“I wish I could go for a walk,” Therese said suddenly.

“So go.”

“You know we can’t do that.”

Instead, Therese paced around the room until Mulder knocked three times on the door. Therese startled, put her hand on her chest and took a deep breath, then opened the door enough to speak with him.

“I’m going to stand outside your door, if that’s okay,” he said.

“Yes. Yes, that’s fine,” she said.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just… I wish I could go for a walk or something.”

Mulder scratched the back of his head and debated this.

“Please?” Therese said, “It won’t be a long one.”

“I’d feel better if you went with Agent Scully, just in case.”

Therese’s face relaxed and she said, “Thank you, Agent Mulder! Hold on.” She closed the door to get dressed again while Mulder called Scully to ask would she please go with Therese for a quick walk, please, I’ll owe you one, I promise.

Before Therese opened the door again, Carol spoke:

“Be careful, my angel.”

 

~

 

Scully and Therese walked past the diner Scully had eaten at earlier.

“So how did you and Mulder meet?” she said.

“I give lectures on the probability of life on other planets. I’m always looking for life out there. And after I gave a lecture about how we’ve probably been contacted lots of times by intelligent life, but just haven’t put the pieces together, he reached out to me to ask if I was ever an abductee. I said no, I wasn’t, but that I was interested in people who were, because it could tell us more about these lifeforms: their society, their values, their technology, everything.”

“Ah. I see.”

“You don’t believe, I’m guessing?”

Scully stuck her hands in her jacket pockets and said, “No, no I don’t, actually.”

“That’s okay. I’m used to people not believing. Carol doesn’t believe, even though it’s been happening to her.”

“I don’t think you can let something like that define you,” Scully said, “If you do, you reduce yourself to being _just_ that: an abductee. Or _just_ a believer, or _just_ whatever it is you label yourself as. There’s more to you and life than _just_ that.”

“Did you ever experience unexplainable phenomena, though?”

“Well, yes. Of course I have. You can’t work in the X-files and not experience the bizarre, the unexplainable. But even the unexplainable must have _some_ kind of explanation.”

Therese smiled and shook her head. She said, “Are you religious?”

“Me? Yes, why?”

“How do you know — I mean, what’s the difference between that kind of faith and this kind of faith? Both of them involve things you can’t prove scientifically. One scientist to another, I mean.”

“How did you know I’m a scientist? And that’s totally different,” Scully said. She picked up her pace, forcing Therese to do so as well.

“Agent Mulder _may_ have mentioned you to me a few times.”

Scully didn’t say anything. Therese smiled, but it was dark, and it was more to herself, anyway.

“Can we go back now? I’m cold,” Scully said.

“Sure,” Therese said, but Scully didn’t hear it. She was focused on someone suspicious hanging out at the end of the block, and stopped walking.

“What’s the matter?”

But Scully didn’t answer her. She was trying to figure out why this tall, muscular man at the end of the street, partially lit by the streetlamp, looked familiar. He turned to face them directly, and then she knew.

“Run!” she said, and grabbed Therese’s hand.

 

~

 

“You don’t have to stay out there all night,” Carol said to Mulder, “Come in.”

“Are you sure? I’m fine out here.”

“No, no, come in, I insist.”

He sat down in the floral, wooden-trimmed armchair that was in the corner, and she sat on one of the twin beds.

“So what made you get into the whole FBI business?” she said.

He explained about Samantha’s abduction when he was a kid; about Scully’s when they were still new partners, and then about her cancer that was because of the alien implant in Scully’s neck.

“I thought I might lose her,” he said, and looked down at the carpet.

“Jesus,” Carol said, “That would feel unbearable.”

Mulder laughed in agreement, then said, “That’s why these cases are so important to me. I don’t want these things happening to any more people.”

“I can see why you and Therese get on so well.” Carol smiled.

“You are very lucky to know her. I mean _really_ know her.”

“I don’t think I know her any better than you do.” It was meant to be a neutral comment, but there may have been some sting in it, and not towards Mulder, either.

“She speaks very highly of you.” When Carol didn’t respond, he said, “Trust me. You mean so much to her.”

His cell phone rang then.

“Excuse me,” to Carol, and into the phone, “Mulder.”

A beat.

“Dammit, I’m on my way!” To Carol, he said, “You stay right here, I mean it, don’t leave this room for any reason at all.”

“What happened? What’s the matter?” Carol said in a panic. But he had already run out of the room.

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An apt quote from Leslie Knope to sum up this chapter: "Everything hurts, and I'm dying. :)" Sorry. But also... not sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Domestic violence reference at the end, so don't read if that is a trigger for you.

Carol threw on whatever clothes she could find and grabbed the pistol from her suitcase. She chased after Mulder and caught up with him as he ran through the hotel lobby.

“What did I tell you?” he said. He stopped and tried to nudge her back towards the elevators and staircase.

“I heard you,” she said. She jerked her arm out of his grasp.

“You can’t come; it’s too dangerous.”

“Like hell I’m not!”

“Fine! I don’t have time for this!” And he took off running.

On the street, Scully led Therese zig-zagging around corners, dumpsters, anything to try and stop the alien from catching up to them. She removed the gun from its holster and twisted behind her, firing a few rounds. As expected, they had no effect.

“What’ll happen if he gets to us?” Therese said.

“Don’t think about that! Here, this way!”

Scully grabbed Therese’s arm and dragged her down an alley with a fire escape.

“You first!” she said.

“But—”

“We don’t have time! Go!”

The alien entered the alley and stared down at Scully and Therese. Scully shot another round or two in his face, but his skin just reshaped, closing the bullet holes.

“Dammit, Mulder, where are you!” Scully said. She looked around the alley for anything else that could be a weapon. Therese had stopped climbing up the stairs and watched the both of them down below. Which one was he after?

He looked up at her. Shit.

Therese scrambled up the stairs. Scully grabbed a pipe from the ground and swung at the alien. He dodged it, then grabbed the other end and ripped it from her hands. He snapped it in two and discarded it behind him. Scully slowly backed away from him, but he closed the gap and grabbed the collar of her suit jacket. She tried to punch and kick him, but it was no use. He lifted her off the ground and flung her against a dumpster, then began climbing the stairs after Therese.

On the rooftop, Therese tried to steady her breathing. She was hiding behind the rooftop access. It would only be a matter of time.

She heard heavy footsteps against the metal grating of the fire escape.

 

~

 

Mulder and Carol found Scully passed out against the dumpster.

“Scully, Scully, can you hear me! Wake up!” Mulder said. He shook her body and slapped her cheeks. She stirred.

“Where’s Therese?” Carol said.

“Up…” Scully mumbled.

Carol could not have gotten on the stairs any faster.

“Wait! You don’t know what they’re capable of!” Mulder said.

“I don’t care!”

He chased after her. When they reached the top, they didn’t see Therese or the alien.

“Well, where could they have gone?” Carol said, and gestured to the limits of the rooftop.

“There,” Mulder said, and pointed to the access door.

 

~

 

Therese hid an unlocked closet in one of the hallways of the building. She couldn’t run anymore; it had drained her of all her energy. All there was left was hope.

The alien tried every door in the hallway. If it was locked, he kicked it down. She could hear him getting closer, and she bit her finger to stop herself from making any noise. She had begun to cry. This was it. Game over. _I’m sorry, Carol. I couldn’t protect myself and I won’t be able to protect you._

He found her. Wrapped his hands around her throat and squeezed. First she saw orange, lime green, and yellow stars, then the darkness slowly crept in. Her throat gagged and her lungs were like the tip of a lit cigarette. She clawed at his hands with her nails. Useless. When she stopped fighting back, he dropped her on the floor. His body morphed, shapeshifting into a slim girl with short brown hair. She wore the same outfit Therese was wearing. The alien cocked its head curiously at crumpled Therese, then tucked an errant hair behind its ear. It shut the door to the closet and calmly walked down the hallway.

“Therese!” Carol said. The alien didn’t turn around. “Therese!”

It turned around and faced her.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re alright!”

Carol gave the alien the tightest of hugs.

“Where did he go? How did you escape?” she said.

The alien shrugged and cleared its throat.

“He just—” another throat-clear, “—vanished. I don’t know. Like something important called him away, or something.”

“But why?” Carol scrunched her face. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

It shrugged again. “Dunno.”

Mulder exited the staircase and joined them.

“Hey, you okay?” he said, and put a hand on the alien’s back.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks, Mulder.”

“Okay. Let’s go get Scully taken care of.”

 

~

 

She was bruised and sore, but otherwise okay. Mulder wrung out the excess water from a washcloth and gently dabbed it against the dirt and grime on Scully’s face. She was sitting on the toilet lid, still in her suit. He had taken off his jacket and tie, and unbuttoned the first two buttons on his shirt. The sleeves of his shirt had been rolled up, too.

“Thanks,” she said.

“I’m surprised you’re actually letting me do this,” he said.

“I’m too tired to care.”

“Well, gee, thanks.”

He smiled, and continued to clean up her face. When he finished, he sat on the edge of the tub.

“So what’s your take on what happened tonight?” he said.

“I don’t know, Mulder.” She rested her chin in her hand.

“I don’t, either. I thought it was Carol they wanted.”

“Maybe it’s both.”

He stood up and put his hands behind his head.

“But why?”

Scully thought for a moment, then looked up at him.

“Maybe Therese knows more than she’s told you.”

“What?”

“I don’t know, Mulder! Maybe she knows something she’s not supposed to know, something she hasn’t mentioned to us. Or to you.”

“Why would she do that?”

“What? Not tell you everything that she knows?” Scully laughed. “Everyone has their secrets, Mulder.”

He stared at his reflection in the mirror above the sink.

“Yeah, but I just thought—”

“That she would be different? Because she’s your friend?”

“Well, yeah! What’s the problem with that, Scully?”

“Because you said it yourself: trust no one! Mulder, everyone lies, everyone keeps secrets, this is nothing new.” She sounded as if she were begging for him to be different, contrary to how he always had been, and always would be.

Mulder covered his mouth with his hand, rubbed the skin hard, like trying to erase bad feelings and memories. He looked at Scully.

“Do you?”

“What? Keep secrets?”

“And lie. Do you?”

She sighed.

“Mulder, it’s human nature.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said, and walked out of the bathroom.

“Because I’m not going to _dignify_ it with an answer!” she said after him.

“Goodnight, Scully. See you in the morning.”

He picked up his jacket from the bed and held it by two fingers with it draped over his shoulder, and left.

 

~

 

In their hotel room, Carol changed into her coral silk pajamas and sat on one of the twin beds. The alien found what it supposed were Therese’s pajamas, and went into the bathroom to change. Carol was flipping through a magazine she had purchased at the rest stop; it seemed years ago rather than the same day.

The alien pulled back the covers to the other twin bed, but stopped when Carol spoke.

“You don’t have to sleep over there.”

It hesitated, then joined Carol. She wrapped her arms around it.

“I was so worried, my darling. I was so scared,” she whispered, and rubbed its back.

“I don’t think we should stay here,” it said.

“What?” Carol stopped moving her hands.

“It’s too dangerous, with everything that happened. We should go.”

“Right now?”

“Well… maybe not _right now_.” The alien smiled.

“You always want to protect me, but let me protect you.”

Carol kissed the alien on the lips. She tried to lie on top of it, but it straddled her instead.

“My,” she said, surprised.

“Shh.”

And the alien kissed her all over her neck, and unbuttoned her pajama shirt to kiss her chest, and Carol didn’t know Therese could be so forward and dominating but she loved it. Until—

“Ouch, that hurts!”

The alien had pinned Carol’s wrists to the bed while kissing her body. It kept going.

“Therese! I said you’re hurting me. Let go of me.”

It let go of her wrists and sat up.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Carol said irritably. She massaged her wrists. “Why don’t we just call it night instead?”

“Okay,” it said. It got off of her and went to the other bed and got under the covers.

Carol turned off the bedside lamp. She looked over at the alien, but it had rolled over and all she could see was its back. She sighed and rolled over, too, so their backs faced each other.

“Shall we leave at dawn?” she said.

“Works for me,” it said neutrally.

Neither got much sleep: Carol, for obvious reasons, and the alien because it didn’t require sleep. When the sun began to rise, the alien sat up first.

“Now?” it said.

“Hm?” Carol was semi-awake.

“Do we go now?”

“Fine, fine,” she said.

They packed their belongings quickly.

“What are you going to tell the agents?” Carol said, leaving the hotel room first.

“I don’t want to wake them up at this hour, you know?” the alien said.

She didn’t feel reassured, and said, “Alright. But I think I’ll leave a message at the front desk. Do you still want to head for Sioux Falls?”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

“Look,” Carol lowered her voice and took the alien’s hands in hers, “What happened was horrifying, I know. But you don’t have to pretend to be strong for me, Therese. You called them for help. That’s okay, to need help sometimes. It’s not a burden to have them help us some more if they are able to.”

“Alright.” It nodded its head in agreement. “Can I drive?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’ll be fine. I promise.”

“Okay.”

Carol left the message at the front desk as promised, that they would probably be at the Warrior Hotel in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. When Scully and Mulder tried knocking on their hotel room to no response, they discovered the message Carol had left for them at reception.

“Is it really wise for them to be on the road by themselves again?” Scully said as they left the hotel.

“Too late now, isn’t it?” Mulder said.

“Well now what?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Case isn’t closed yet.”

“Oh, Mulder…”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been to Sioux Falls before. Have you?” He smiled.

 

~

 

Therese rubbed her eyes. _I’m in a housekeeping closet. Why am I in here? What happened?_ She tenderly rubbed her throat. _Oh my God._

She stood up but the change in blood pressure made her dizzy, so she pressed her forehead against the doorframe and closed her eyes until it passed. The sky was still tinted faintly orange and pink. Sunrise was almost over. As fast as she could, she made it back to the hotel room she and Carol had been staying at. It was empty.

622\. Empty. She went into the restroom and cried in an available stall. _Did they leave me or did something happen to them?_ She allowed herself to cry for a few minutes, then: _Pull yourself together. But I wish Carol was here to hold me. But you have to be brave, now. Do it for her. Okay._

Turning on the cold water, she splashed her face and looked at herself in the mirror.

“Oh my God.”

There were hand-shaped bruises on her neck.

“How am I going to—?” Scarf? It’s summer. Makeup? Makeup. So she tried to pop her shirt collar to hide as much of the bruises as she could, and went to the corner store to buy some makeup.

“Oh, honey,” the clerk said in a hushed tone, “You don’t have to stay with him. You’re worth more than that.”

“I know,” Therese said, “You don’t understand. I’m in a hurry.”

“I’ve seen girls like you,” she said, tsk-tsk. “Don’t give him another chance. Promise?”

“I won’t,” Therese said irritably. “Promise.”

“Good girl.”

She went into the store bathroom and smeared the makeup over the bruises. What would be the fastest way to get to Sioux Falls? Train? Rent a car? A car, definitely.

While Mulder and Scully were on the highway to Sioux Falls and Therese attempting to catch up, Carol and the alien took an unexpected detour off the highway.

“A shortcut?” Carol said.

“Something like that,” the alien said, and smiled.

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything Is Terrible pt. whatever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:  
> 1\. Major mythology spoilers for TXF. If you haven't seen up to and including S7, don't read on.  
> 2\. Minor gaslighting; don't read if that is a trigger for you.

It took Mulder and Scully just over three hours to reach Sioux Falls, South Dakota. They entered the Warrior Hotel and inquired at the front desk if Carol and Therese had checked in.

“No, but I did receive a message to pass along to the two of you,” the receptionist said.

They looked at each other in confusion.

“What is it?” Mulder said.

The receptionist read from the note she had taken.

“No matter what happens, wait for me at the hotel. T.”

“Uh, thank you,” Scully said. They walked outside.

“What is that supposed to mean?” she said.

“I think it means that the person we think is Therese isn’t actually Therese at all.”

“So what do we do?” she said.

“We wait,” Mulder said. He stuck his hands in his pants pockets and kicked a pebble.

“Mulder! We can’t just wait around for her to show up!”

“She knows Carol better than we do. We can’t do this without her.”

“And _we_ know those things better than she does! We can’t waste our time waiting for her if what you said is true. Who knows where that — that thing is taking her right now.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” he said, gesturing dramatically with his hands. “What else do you want us to do? Go back on the road again? And go where, Scully? Where do you want to go?”

“Well why not call for backup?”

“Oh, sure, Kersh will _really_ love that, Scully. ‘Hello, AD Kersh? Yeah, hi, it’s your favorite agent in the world, Mulder. Hey listen, can you send down half the Bureau, we’ve got a missing woman, she’s been kidnapped by an alien that looks exactly like her girlfriend, thanks.’”

Scully groaned. “Sure. Fine. Whatever.”

 

~

 

Therese sped as fast as she dared to on the highway towards Sioux Falls. When she was within 20 minutes of the hotel, a black sedan jumped out in front of her, forcing her to hit the brakes hard. They avoided a collision, and she leapt out of the rental car.

“What the hell was that for!” she said.

The man in the suit calmly stepped out of the vehicle. He removed a cigarette from his pack and lit it.

“I had to get your attention somehow,” he said.

“You! What do you want with Carol? We haven’t done anything to you!”

“You’ve been sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong for too long, my dear.”

“What?”

“You and Fox Mulder, and that partner of his, Agent Scully.”

“So you follow us? Why?”

He flicked the excess ashes and said, “We will always be watching you, Doctor. As long as you continue your research, you and Mulder will always pose a threat to everything I stand for.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

He laughed softly.

“Not yet you don’t. But you will.”

The Cigarette Smoking Man started to get back into his car, but stopped when Therese spoke.

“Leave Carol out of this, then. If it’s me and the agents you really want, then leave her alone. She doesn’t have anything to do with this. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t even believe.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Why not!”

“You’ve made her involved. Sorry,” he said, and got back into the car.

“Wait!” Therese said. But he drove off. “Dammit!”

 

~

 

“Therese, we’ve been driving for quite a while,” Carol said.

“Yes,” the alien said.

“Well… are you hungry?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m hungry. Can we stop somewhere and get something to eat?”

They were on the outskirts of Omaha, Nebraska. The alien said, “I suppose,” and made the necessary turns to a nearby diner. Before they got out of the car, Carol put her hand on its arm.

“Is everything okay? You’ve been awfully quiet the past few hours.”

“Yes, I’m fine,” it said, and tried to open the car door, but Carol stopped it again.

“Honey, are you sure? I mean… I know you’ve had a lot weighing on your mind lately. But you don’t have to keep everything all bottled up.”

The alien turned and looked at Carol. It said, “Let’s talk more about this when we get to the hotel in a little while, okay?”

Carol inhaled sharply.

“All right.”

Even though the alien didn’t need to eat, it could still eat if it wanted to. It ordered a sub with jalapeno peppers on it.

“I thought you didn’t like anything spicy,” Carol said after the waitress took their orders and menus, and left.

“Hm?”

“I thought you didn’t like to eat anything spicy or hot, because you don’t like how it makes your eyes water and your nose run.”

“Did I say that? I don’t remember saying that,” it said.

“You mentioned it the day we had the picnic, at Bear Mountain. When we made sandwiches.”

“I dunno,” it said, and shrugged.

Carol shifted in the booth uncomfortably. The alien stared out of the window and paid no attention to her.

“I’ll be right back,” she said.

She went to the payphone outside of the diner, and placed two calls: the first, to the Warrior Hotel, and left a message of where they had stopped for lunch at the front reception for the agents. The second was to Abby.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re home,” Carol said.

“How’s it going? You haven’t called me lately. All I have are these postcards and they barely tell me anything!”

“Abby, I’m probably worrying for nothing, but Therese is acting out of sorts, and I don’t know, I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“Why, what’s wrong with her?” she said.

“I don’t know. She’s horribly moody and distant. I can’t tell you everything that happened right now, but last night someone was chasing after her, and now we have these two FBI agents traveling with us trying to protect us, and—”

“What? You never tell me anything good anymore!”

“I know, I’m sorry, everything’s just been… so hectic and exhausting and I will tell you more, I promise.”

“Well, maybe she’s moody because of what happened last night?” Abby said.

“That’s what I thought, too, but this feels different. She doesn’t seem like the same person anymore.”

“Carol, you sound ragged. And it seems like it’s taking a toll on both you and Therese. Maybe you should come home?”

“Come home? To what, to Harge trying to take Rindy away from me? To—”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry.”

A beat, then:

“I should go, Abby. I promise I will call you when we get to the hotel later, and I will tell you everything.”

“Alright. Just be careful, okay, Carol? Be safe.”

“I will. Talk later.”

She hung up the phone and covered her eyes with her hands for a moment. Deep breaths. _Maybe Abby’s right. Maybe it’s time we went home. No. I won’t let this spoil things with Therese._ And she walked back into the diner, rejoining the alien, who smiled at her.

“Hey,” it said.

“Hm?”

“Nothing.”

The smile didn’t reach wide enough for Carol to see dimples.

 

~

 

Therese reached the Warrior Hotel and found Mulder and Scully hanging out in the parking lot.

“So it’s true,” Scully said.

“What’s true? What do you think, I’m a liar?” Therese said to her.

“Whoa, whoa,” Mulder said, hands up in a surrendering gesture.

“And you — you know things about that cigarette smoking guy. Spill it.”

“What’s this all about?” Scully said.

“He intercepted me on my way here. He said he’s not going to stop following me so long as I remain a threat to him. Why would I be a threat to him? Why are you threats to him? What do you know? What do they want with Carol? No more secrets!”

Therese pushed Mulder, or tried to. She ended up pushing herself away from him rather than push him backwards.

“Hey, hey, calm down,” he said, and put his hands on her shoulders. “I’ll tell you. But first, we have to go to Omaha.”

“What? Why?”

“That’s where he’s taking her,” Scully said.

“The guy who chased us last night?”

“Yes. Only he doesn’t look like that anymore. He looks like you now,” Mulder said.

“He — what?”

“A special kind of alien that can make themselves look like anyone they want to. They’re Bounty Hunters; some of them are even Super Soldiers,” he said.

“And now he’s taking Carol wherever he wants,” Scully said.

“Come on, get in the car. Let’s go,” Mulder said, and opened the driver’s side door. Scully entered the passenger’s side next to him, and Therese in the back. They sped off onto the highway.

“So what’s the deal with the cigarette smoking guy and the alien? Why do they want to hurt us so badly? We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You know too much,” Mulder said.

“That’s what he said. But I feel like I don’t know anything at all.”

“It’s my fault, Therese. I told you things you shouldn’t have known when we wrote to each other, with the Lone Gunmen. And I’m sure you discovered things on your own, too. We all talked about it. I didn’t think anyone would come after you.”

Scully frowned at him.

“I don’t need any grief from you, either,” he said to her.

“So because I think aliens have contacted us loads of times before, and probably walk among us — well, I guess they really do — I’m a threat to them?”

“You’re a threat because you give lectures on these topics. You’re telling people who wouldn’t otherwise have access to those ideas that knowledge.”

“They want to wipe out humanity and replace us with their own race — colonize Earth. And to have you going around, telling people about your theories — dammit, why didn’t I see it before?”

“But why Carol? Why go after her?”

The agents were silent for a moment.

“Probably for the same reasons the men went after me,” Scully said quietly.

 

~

 

They finished eating lunch and waited for the check.

“How about I drive for awhile? You could rest,” Carol said.

“I don’t feel tired,” the alien said, “But thank you.”

Carol’s heart pounded. She couldn’t tell if she was imagining herself going crazy, or if she had actually gone crazy.

“Are we still going to Sioux Falls?” she said.

“No. I don’t think it’s safe for us to go there,” it said.

“Where are we going, then?”

The waitress placed the check on the table and said, “Whenever you’re ready, dears.”

“Holstein.”

“Where is _that_?”

“Not far from here. In Nebraska.”

They paid the bill and walked out to the car. It opened the driver’s door and got in. Carol reluctantly followed suit.

 

~

 

The trio arrived at the diner, but did not see Therese’s red Wrangler.

“Excuse me, have you seen this woman in here sometime earlier today?” Mulder said to one of the waitresses. He showed her a picture of Carol from Therese’s digital camera.

“Yeah, yeah, I saw that lady in here today. She was with you,” she said to Therese.

“Where did they go?”

“Why don’t you ask her?” she said, and pointed to Therese.

“Ugh. I’m waiting outside,” Therese said.

Mulder tried another of the waitresses.

“I waited on her and another woman, with brown hair,” she said.

“Did you happen to hear where they were going next?” Scully said.

“Holstein.”

She gave them directions to the small town, population barely 200. The agents thanked her and stepped outside.

“Let’s go,” Mulder said, “We’ve got to get to Holstein before sundown.”

 

~

 

“Welcome to Holstein,” Carol read from the sign. “Why here?”

“I got tired of big cities,” the alien said.

The questions Carol really wanted to ask resided on the tip of her tongue. But once she said any of them, the game would be over, and as much as she wanted to find out what was going on, she didn’t want to find out, either. They pulled up to a boarding house owned by an elderly woman, who rented them a room with no trouble. The sun was beginning to set.

Carol put her luggage at the foot of the bed, and heard the click of a door lock. She looked up at the alien, with its back pressed against the bedroom door. Her heart was loud in her ears.

“Why don’t you lie down on the bed?” it said.

“Therese, you’re scaring me.”

“I’m not who you think I am.”

It crept closer to Carol; with every slow step she took one back, until she bumped into the dresser.

“Who are you?” she said. Then, louder, “Somebody, help!”

“I doubt anyone will hear you. Or care. They’re all like me, anyway.”

“What do you want with me? I haven’t done anything to you!”

“Do you remember getting sick, in 1973?”

“What?”

“Do you?”

“Of course I do.”

She had been sick with pneumonia, to the point that her parents worried she might not make it. “It’s a miracle,” her mother said when she finally pulled through. And indeed it had been.

“We were there even then. Are you sure your daughter’s even _yours_?”

Carol grabbed the lamp on the dresser and hurled it at the alien. It shattered, some pieces of porcelain sticking in its flesh.

“Pathetic. You humans are all the same.”

She bent down and clutched a large shard of the lamp. When the alien lunged at her, Carol swiped with the shard, slitting its throat. Green blood, or slime, or whatever it was, oozed out of the wound and like acid, burned and singed the wooden floor where it pooled. The alien clutched its throat and tried to grab Carol, but she already had darted for the door.

“Damn you,” it said hoarsely. “You won’t get very far.”

 

~

 

Therese and the agents pulled into Holstein and spotted the Jeep at the boarding house. She jumped out of the car before Mulder had completely parked it.

“Federal agents!” Scully said, holding up her FBI badge.

“Did you see a blonde woman, 30s, leave here?” Mulder said.

“Why, yes, I did. She sprinted out of here not a moment ago,” the old woman said.

“Where did she go?” Scully said.

“Can’t say.” The woman shrugged.

“Where’s the nearest payphone?” Therese said.

“At the Smith farm over there,” she said and pointed. Therese didn’t wait for Mulder or Scully before running out of the boarding house.

“Wait!” he said, and they ran after her.

 

~

 

Carol locked herself in the telephone booth. She had no idea who to call. The police? The diner she had been to earlier? Abby? She grabbed the phone book and flipped through its pages, searching for an answer. In the distance, she could see things heading for her direction. They were small at first, indistinguishable. Then she realized what they were: people.

“The whole town,” she said. “The whole fucking town.”

She froze. To stay or to go?

There wasn’t any time to decide. A searchlight shone over the telephone booth. Carol stepped out and looked up into the light. A helicopter? No. It was silent; there were no chopper blades. She looked back out at the forest of people, like zombies, making their way towards her.

 

~

 

Instead of running to the farm, Therese had run to the car.

“Come on, hurry up! Drive, drive!”

They got in and Mulder smashed the gas pedal, peeling out towards the farm.

“Oh my God,” Scully said. They saw the townspeople lurching towards the payphone, and the UFO up above.

“No!” Therese said. She pounded her fist against the back of Scully’s seat.

Mulder drove past the people and hit the brakes near the payphone. Therese jumped out of the car and grabbed Carol’s ankle. She tried to pull her back to the ground, but the force was too strong. Her grip slipped and Carol was taken into the ship. Therese got back in the car, and without needing instructions, Mulder knew what to do: he hit the gas again. They followed the ship for as long as they could, but it disappeared.

“No, no!” Therese said.

He kept driving for a few minutes more, anyway.

“Mulder…” Scully said softly.

“Don’t,” he said.

Therese sobbed in the backseat. Mulder kept driving, but he drove off of the farmland and back towards Omaha. He couldn’t think of anyplace else to go away from the Colonists. They weren’t following them thankfully, but he felt it wise not to hang out Holstein any longer. Scully’s cell phone rang.

“Scully,” she said.

“You better have a damn good explanation for where you are right now,” Kersh said.

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything sucks ass pt. infinity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Torture scenes. God. I'm sorry.

It was like being in the dentist’s office. Hooks held Carol’s lips apart, and her forehead was trapped in a metal container attached to the metal examination chair. She couldn’t lift her head or turn it; her line of sight was limited to how far she could circle her eyes in their sockets. Metal cuffs, also attached to the chair, locked her wrists and ankles in position. She was naked and at their mercy. Darkness surrounded her, and a bright light shone above her like a spotlight. She couldn’t tell if she was alone in the room, or if there were other abductees in other chairs or on tables in this room. For how long had she been on this ship? An hour? A day? A month? Did time even flow the same on it? Were they still anywhere near Earth, or had they already flown away for a far-off planet?

On her right, a whirring sound. It reminded her of a drill. Just like getting a cavity filled — only this one sounded much larger.

_Click. Click click click click? Click click click. Click click._

She tried to scream, but the hooks garbled it. The whirring sound grew louder, closer. Carol strained against the restraints; it was a futile effort. It was almost upon her, and still she couldn’t see what they looked like. She shut her eyes and steeled herself for what was about to happen to her. _Therese… please help me…_

 

~

 

They sat in a booth in the diner.

“You should eat something, Therese,” Scully said. She ate another French fry from Mulder’s plate. Therese continued to stare out of the window, her scrambled eggs and toast growing colder.

Mulder sighed. He was looking at Therese moping.

“Hey,” he said, and reached across the table towards Therese. “We’re going to find her, okay? I promise.”

Scully kicked Mulder’s leg.

“Don’t promise me anything, Agent Mulder. I promised Carol I would protect her. Look where that got her,” Therese said, not looking at them. She sounded hollow and far-away.

He retracted his arm and took a bite of his burger. Scully stabbed a lettuce leaf with her fork and spoke:

“I don’t know how much longer we can stay out here, anyway. Kersh didn’t sound too thrilled that we were out here.”

“Of course he wasn’t,” Mulder said through his chewing. “He hates everything we do.”

“Only when we disobey orders,” Scully said quietly.

“We can’t go back,” he said, and gestured at Therese.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, and turned to look at them. “Thank you for all of your help, Agents.” She forced a smile, but it was false and didn’t reach her eyes.

“I’m not just gonna leave you hanging, Therese,” he said.

“Mulder, I don’t think we really have a choice…”

“You always have a _choice_ , Scully.”

Therese slid out from the booth and said, “I’ll be back.”

She walked over to the jukebox in the corner of the diner. It was late and not many patrons were in the place. She inserted some change and flipped through the choices. After she made her selection, she rejoined the agents.

“We don’t even know where they took her, Mulder.”

“So we just give up?” he said, and looked up when Therese sat down. “Let’s talk about this later.”

They continued to eat, and even Therese began to eat, too. Scully paused, a baby tomato speared and held mid-air on the way to her mouth.

 

_Kiss me!_

_\- Tonight?_

_Kiss me._

_\- You mean tonight?_

_The plan is made._

_\- Oh, sir!_

_So kiss me._

_\- I feel a fright._

_Be not afraid._

 

“Is that… _Sweeney Todd_? Did you put on _**Sweeney Todd**_?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” Mulder said, and laughed a little.

“Because I miss Carol,” Therese said simply. They waited expectantly, so she continued:

“One day during the trip while we were driving, we talked about our favorite music. I had a few mix CDs, but we had tired of listening to those, and she asked if it would be okay to play some of her music — I said of course, you don’t even have to ask. She had brought some cassettes with her, and they were all Broadway soundtracks.” Therese smiled, and then it faded. “But I couldn’t bear to put on ‘Buenos Aires’ or ‘Edelweiss.’ So I put on my favorite from one of _my_ favorite Broadway shows, Sweeney Todd. We talked about that, too, that day. ‘Of course you would like Sweeney Todd!’ she said.”

She laughed, and looked at her hands resting in her lap.

“She said after we got back to New York, she wanted to take me to a Broadway show, because I had never seen one before. I was too young for all the ones I wanted to see. Next year they’re doing a show called _The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe_. It would be lovely to see that with Carol. And I would love to see _Cabaret_ with her. The movie with Liza Minnelli was just wonderful, wasn’t it?”

“We’ll _find_ her,” Mulder said.

Therese looked out of the window again.

“I hope so.”

 

~

 

“Do you really think it’s more important for us to go back, Scully?”

They were in Scully’s hotel room. Mulder sat with his feet, shoeless, propped up on the writing desk, and Scully sat cross-legged on the bed. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands.

“I don’t think it’s _more_ important, but I think the longer we stay out here, the more we put our jobs at risk. And we can’t do what we do if we don’t have jobs, Mulder. We’re not even supposed to be working on the X-files at all.”

Mulder played with the toothpick in his mouth, moving it up and down by biting on the end of it.

“So that’s your answer?” he said.

“Yes,” she said, and gave him an _isn’t that obvious?_ shrug.

“I just don’t think we should. We owe it to Therese to find Carol. And who knows who else might be on that ship?”

“You can’t save everyone, Mulder,” Scully said softly.

He took the toothpick from his mouth and turned it over in his fingers, not looking at Scully.

“Wouldn’t you want someone to keep searching if it were me?”

“Mulder! Ugh.”

They looked at each other.

“Well?” he challenged. Still, she didn’t answer. “Did I give up when it was you who was abducted?”

“I think this is different, Mulder.”

“How? How is it any different, Scully?” He pulled his feet off the table and sat upright.

She rubbed her face again.

“Can we talk about this in the morning? Please?”

“Fine,” he said. He threw the toothpick at the trash pail, but missed. “Have a goodnight, Scully.”

 

~

 

Therese hung up the hotel phone. She felt a little better after talking with Abby, but only just a little. Abby now knew everything that had happened, and wanted to come out there to meet Therese, but Therese talked her out of it. “I have to find Carol myself, and I don’t want to worry about anything happening to you,” she had said to Abby. Plus, she hoped they would return Carol to her house or Abby’s, if they weren’t going to bring her back to Holstein or Omaha.

“How long can you stay out there?” Abby had asked her. “How long _will_ you stay out there?”

“I don’t know. Until I find her. I _have_ to find her.”

It was too quiet in the hotel room. Even when Carol was simply reading, she brought energy and life to a room. But it just felt empty and dead now. Therese turned on her CD player and turned the volume to its highest setting. She placed the earbuds in a cup on the night-table next to the bed.

 

_Darling you got to let me know_

_Should I stay or should I go?_

_If you say that you are mine_

_I’ll be here ‘til the end of time_

_So you got to let me know_

_Should I stay or should I go?_

 

…

 

_Should I stay or should I go now?_

_If I go, there will be trouble_

_And if I stay, it will be double_

_So come on and let me know_

 

“Should I should stay or should I go now, Carol?” Therese whispered. She pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, and rested her chin on her knees. She shut her eyes and clenched her teeth. The tears came, anyway, and she succumbed to the storm.

“I told you I was the storm. I told you. And now you’re not here, and it’s all my fault!”

She grabbed one of the pillows from behind her and flung it across the room. Therese wiped her eyes and tried to catch her breath. _Don’t apologize_ , Carol’s voice echoed in her mind, _It’s not your fault._

The next song in the playlist began and couldn’t have been a worse one for Therese to hear. It reminded her of when she took Carol to the forest that night for s’mores and stargazing, because on the way there, Therese selfishly wished that while they drove, a tree or telephone pole would smash into her Jeep or crash in front of them, and their bodies would be dragged from the rubble together.

“Fuck you, Morrissey,” she said, and flung herself on her stomach with her limbs splayed out. But she didn’t change the song.

Though she couldn’t remember when it happened, eventually, she fell asleep.

 

~

 

The buzzing sound of a saw woke Carol up. She opened her eyes just in time to see it cutting into her left forearm. The hooks weren’t in her mouth anymore, though it felt dry, as if she had slept with her mouth open, but she hadn’t. This time, her scream was uninhibited.

 

~

 

In the morning, the three met outside of the hotel.

“Therese,” Mulder said. She didn’t like the way he said her name, because she knew what he was going to say. He seemed unable to continue, so Scully stepped in:

“This is not what we want, but we’ve been called back to D.C. We have a disciplinary hearing first thing tomorrow morning. I’m sorry.”

“So it’s just me, then?” Therese said. She hadn’t looked at either of them.

“Look, if it were up to me —” Mulder said.

“But it’s not. It’s up to them,” she said, and pointed to the sky. “So I guess I just… go home, now. Without her.”

He put his hand on her shoulder, and Therese clutched his body in a tight hug. He held her until she let go.

“It’s not easy. I know. But just because we’re leaving, doesn’t mean you have to go home. Unless you want to. It’s up to you,” he said.

“Well my car is still in Holstein, where the aliens have probably done who-knows-what with it for their own purposes… so it’s not like I can still go west. Not that I’d really want to, anyway,” Therese said.

“Don’t worry, the Bureau will take care of that for you,” Scully said.

Mulder stood with his hands in his pants pockets, and looked at his shoes. Therese, too, looked at the ground. Even Scully was preoccupied, and stared at the cars entering and exiting the parking lot. Mulder broke the silence.

“So I guess this… is goodbye.”

He held out his hand. Therese shook it.

“Thank you, Agent Mulder. You are a great friend.”

She shook Scully’s hand and said, “Thank you, too, Agent Scully. I wish you and Carol had had more time to spend together. I think the two of you would have liked each other a lot.” She smiled fondly. “Please have a safe trip.”

“Keep me updated,” Mulder said.

Therese gave him a two-fingered salute. Then, they were gone for the airport.

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ripping Your Hearts Out Yet Again, by Me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise things will get better soon.
> 
> Not available on Spotify, so I can't add to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGX5AcxwQqE

Therese stayed in Omaha for a week. She ate breakfast at the same diner early in the mornings, then drove around the outskirts of the city and as near Holstein as she dared without actually going into the town. Only when it was late would she return back to the hotel and make her nightly call to Abby. She received a call from Mulder midway through the week, asking about any news, but she had none to offer him. He asked if she received the check from the Bureau, and she said yes, she had, and thank you. She didn’t know that Kersh had made Scully and Mulder pay from their own salaries for the Jeep and the belongings lost to the residents of Holstein. He didn’t think she should know.

At the end of the week, she decided to buy another car with the reimbursement money: a used Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera. It was very different from her Jeep Wrangler, and it was white, not red, but she liked it quite a bit and felt it was time for a change. She had purchased some new clothes while she was in Omaha, too, and they were not the plaid button-ups or khaki shorts she had brought along with her at the beginning of the trip, but she felt the new dresses, skirts, and blouses suited her.

Everyday, she wandered around Nebraska in search of Carol or some sign of the aliens, and everyday she crawled into an empty bed. Everyday, she ate the same plate of scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. Everyday, before she turned out the bedside lamp, she flipped through the photos she had taken of Carol on her camera. Everyday. Every day.

 

~

 

Carol opened her eyes. She looked down at her forearm. There were no marks, no scars, not even a speck of blood. It was as if her arm had never been severed in the first place. She wiggled her fingers just to be sure. It seemed that everything still worked alright. But she was still strapped to that godawful chair. Except, this time there was someone else she could see in the room with her: a child, not more than Rindy’s age. Probably eight at the most, Carol guessed. The child had dark brown hair and like Carol, was strapped to a metal chair with cuffs around her ankles and wrists. There was nothing constricting her head, and she was also naked. She looked directly at Carol and spoke:

“Is this your first time here?”

“Yes. Who are you? How long have I been here?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Time is different here.”

“How do you know this?” Carol said.

“I’ve been here before. Lots of times. I used to be scared, but you get used to it.”

“What? I don’t want to get _used_ to it!”

“Sorry.” But it didn’t fully sound like an apology.

“Did they take you back home?”

“Yes, but not to my parents. Then I got taken away again, and again…”

Carol squeezed her eyes shut. She opened them. Nothing had changed.

“They’re not so bad, you know,” the girl said.

“I just want to go home,” Carol said, and turned her head away as much as her restraint would allow.

They heard clicking in the darkness. It grew closer. Carol braced herself, but it was the girl they injected something with.

“What are you doing to her? She’s just a child! God, you’re horrible!” She struggled against the restraints.

One of the aliens spoke to the others in the clicking noises. Carol felt cold, three-fingered hands grip her arms hard. They were gray and wrinkled, and she couldn’t see the faces of who or what they belonged to. A pen-like instrument, held in another alien’s hand, steadied above her sternum. Carol’s hysteria multiplied, and the cold hands holding her still pressed harder into her flesh — they would leave bruises afterward.

“What are you going to do me? Let me go! Let me out of here!”

The tip of the pen lit orange like a cigarette. A laser.

It cut without resistance into Carol’s chest. She simultaneously felt nothing, and felt a heat so intense that it was a cold burn. The girl was silent, and watched Carol scream in agony.

 

~

 

By the end of the second week, Therese had run out of excuses for the waitresses’ questions at the diner every morning. She spent hours in the library, poring over books about aliens, crop circles, UFOs, anything that might lead to Carol. At night, she drove around on highways, never spotting any lights in the sky except those belonging to planes taking off or coming into the airport. She stopped calling Abby every night, and instead called Mulder every night. Their calls were filled more with silence than conversation, but the words they did exchange were of shared trauma and experiences.

Everyday, she listened to her mix CDs on the drives, and skipped over songs that were too energetic. Everyday, she gazed at the sky, instinctively finding Polaris when it wasn’t cloudy, and prayed. Everyday, she turned down the invitations from well-meaning patrons in the diner or the hotel for company on day-trip excursions or even conversation over coffee. Everyday, she felt herself slipping away.

At the beginning of the third week, she checked out of the hotel, ate her last breakfast at the diner, and was on the highway headed back to New York. She listened to a new cassette she had found in a thrift store in Omaha.

 

_I’m afraid there is so much to be afraid of_

_I kill the fire so I don’t get burned_

_Kill the fire and you won’t get burned_

 

“I don’t need you anymore,” she said along with the song. Therese gripped the steering wheel of the Cutlass Ciera ‘til her knuckles whitened.

 

_Symptomatic of what we’ve become_

_I used to think you were the only one._

 

She set her teeth hard, her foot pressed the gas further. The speedometer needled toward 70 miles per hour. It wasn’t enough for Therese. No speed or distance would be.

“I don’t need you anymore.”

 


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Therese's emotions:  
> :(  
> :(  
> :(  
> :o  
> :D  
> :)  
> :)  
> :S  
> :(  
> :'(  
> >:(

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here begins the PTSD, so content warning for that.
> 
> Shit's heavy. Sorry. :\

The days melted together. Summer dragged on. Therese gave more lectures, at Cornell, at Columbia, and an upcoming one next week at SUNY Stony Brook. They weren’t about exoplanets or the potential for life on them. They were about how life most likely started on Earth, and general topics in astronomy and physics. The plaid shirts that had remained in her closet during the trip were left untouched, passed over for the dresses and skirts that had previously been only display items. She collaborated on projects at Brookhaven National Lab, making the journey to Long Island when an in-person presence was needed. Therese still looked up at the stars every night in Burdett, but she stopped checking the websites she used to scour regularly. Her calls with Mulder dropped off, and she stopped answering non-work emails.

She sometimes spoke with Abby, and once they even got together for lunch. Abby was always nice to Therese; that wasn’t the problem. After they left the restaurant, Therese sighed in relief as she was on the road back north home. She decided she wouldn’t, _couldn’t_ , keep up appearances with Abby. It wasn’t Abby’s fault. It was just too tiring for Therese.

Spooky spent more time inside than before the trip. He was glued to Therese’s legs, not necessarily wanting for affection or attention, but just wanting to remain in her company at all times. Sometimes she found herself sitting in the armchair in the den, cuddling Spooky close to her chest, and it was as if she couldn’t recall how or when they had arranged themselves in this manner, but she was suddenly aware of it and that realization broke their shared trance. She would let him go when she realized this, and he would curl up in the corner of the room next to one of the bookcases and watch her.

In the beginning, she had downloaded the pictures she had taken with the camera, and printed out her favorite of Carol: a stealth shot when she was asleep, not a single blonde curl out of place in only a way Carol and no one else could manage to still look put together even while asleep. Therese had pinned the photo to her corkboard in the den, but a few days later, took it down and tossed it in the trash bin. She saved the photos to a CD, then deleted them from her camera. The CD was filed with her other photography CDs, slides, and prints in a box in the closet.

One night, not making much progress on her work as usual, she walked outside to the neighbor’s fence across the dirt road. There was only one cow now. Therese stroked the cow’s muzzle.

“You miss her, don’t you?” she said.

She looked up at the sky, half-expecting to see a bright light overhead and Carol coming out of the spaceship. But all she saw were the stars, just as she saw them every night. So she shook her head and went back inside to try and focus again.

Another night, Therese abandoned her work for the guest room. She lingered in the doorway, seeing it through a stranger’s eyes. Remembering things.

She sat down at the piano, and played, singing along only when she reached the last verse:

 

_How I wish, how I wish you were here_

_We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year_

_Running over the same old ground._

_What have we found?_

_The same old fears._

_Wish you were here._

 

Why did she stand there and let herself get sucked in? Why didn’t she move, or run? Why didn’t she realize that she was a fake? Therese sighed. It wasn’t her fault, and it wasn’t Carol’s fault, she knew all of this, went over it countless times. If only. If only, if only, if only.

 

~

 

She was woken up by the sound of the cow mooing frantically. Therese sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. There was a light outside. Cautiously, she stepped toward the window, but the light wasn’t coming from the road. It came from the sky.

Therese ran. Outside, a light brighter than the sun came from something in the sky. She shielded her eyes. Then, it was gone. She opened her eyes.

Carol stood on the dirt road wearing the same clothes from the day she disappeared. She shivered. Therese ran to her. Carol took a few steps back.

“Carol? Carol, are you okay?”

But Therese could see in her eyes that she was not. Rather than give her a hug, Therese held out her hand and waited for Carol to take it. She looked at the outstretched hand, then back at Therese. Trembling, Carol took it. Therese closed her eyes and squeezed Carol’s hand for a moment.

“Let’s get you warmed up inside.”

In the kitchen, Therese fixed themselves mugs of hot tea. Carol stood with her back to the living room wall so she could face the entryway to the kitchen and see Therese when she would come back out.

“You don’t have to stand over there,” Therese said. “Sit down.”

It was a slow and painful process to watch, but Carol did. She took the mug from Therese and immediately put it down on the coffee table. Questions burned in Therese’s throat, but she swallowed them with every gulp of tea. She just watched Carol watching her.

Every time Carol tried to think of something to say, a memory from the ship crossed her mind and filled her eyes like snow on a television screen diluting the picture. Therese had said something to her, but she only heard the woman’s voice from far away, outside of herself and just unintelligible noises, not words of a language she was fluent in.

“What?” Carol said.

“Do you want to go to bed?” Therese repeated.

“Yes,” Carol whispered, “but don’t… please…”

She looked like a child separated from her mother in a huge department store. Therese understood.

“I won’t.”

Therese gave Carol a pair of pajamas. She went into the bathroom to change, and Therese sat on the edge of the bed, and stared at the floor. The sound of the bathroom door opening snapped Therese out of her thoughts. They crawled into bed together, and Carol held Therese close. Therese tried to stay awake until Carol fell asleep, but she slipped back into her slumber first. When she woke up in the morning, Carol was sleeping just as close as she had been to Therese at night. Therese brushed a bit of hair away from Carol’s face and kissed her forehead.

Without opening her eyes, Carol mumbled, “My sunshine.”

“I’ll make some breakfast, if you want,” Therese whispered.

Carol opened her eyes and gazed into Therese’s, searching. She had the sense that Carol was trying to communicate something to her, but what was it? There was something behind the layer of affection in Carol’s eyes, something deeper, darker. Despairing.

“That would be lovely, darling.”

She got out of bed and went into the bathroom. Therese heard the shower turn on. She remembered that night in the hotel shower. Then, she got out of bed, too, and went to the kitchen to fix the pancakes. The silence was maddening. She turned on stereo in the living room and let The Cure fill the air.

“Why do you listen to such depressing music?” Carol said, joining Therese at the stove.

Therese frowned. She wasn’t teasing her; it was a serious question.

“I don’t know,” Therese said. The day felt weighty and final to Therese, and she just wanted to listen to something comforting and familiar. “You can change it if you want,” she said indifferently. Carol didn’t, though.

Breakfast was strained and as if they didn’t know each other very well at all. As if she might be referring to the weather, Carol said, “I’m going to ask Abby if she take me back downstate today.”

“I could drive you,” Therese said.

“No, no, I couldn’t.”

“It’s no trouble at all. Really, Carol.” Please just let me do this for you.

Carol gave Therese the bare minimum of a smile and said, “No, no.”

That was their only conversation over breakfast. Now it was Therese who didn’t want Carol to leave her. It felt like their first morning after they had just met, when Carol’s car had broken down. Everything was happening all over again, but differently. Everything was coming full circle. Therese felt that she would die if the circle completed itself. Didn’t Carol care?

While waiting for Abby, Carol sat in the guest room, scribbling something away. Therese typed an email to Mulder and the Lone Gunmen that didn’t necessarily need to be encrypted, but she figured it was better to be safe than sorry. The body contained just one sentence.

 

_How do you know if love is worth it?_

 

Mulder replied almost instantly.

 

_When the person who was just a friend is… suddenly the only person you can ever imagine yourself with._

 

Therese covered her face with her hands.

 

~

 

Abby and Carol hugged tightly. Therese stayed by the front door and watched.

“I’m so glad you’re back,” Abby said, and started to tear up.

“Oh stop that. You’ll make _me_ cry,” Carol said.

“Well, I can’t help it!”

She brushed the tears away before they could slide down her cheeks. Carol walked back to Therese.

“Will I see you again?” Therese whispered.

Carol cupped Therese’s face and kissed her. It was the answer to Therese’s question, wrapped in thousands of layers like a geological bedrock. Therese dug her nails into the fabric of Carol’s blouse, bunching it up in her fists. She could taste the acid in her mouth and forced her mind to stay blank. Carol separated their lips, and met her eyes with Therese’s.

“My angel,” she whispered. Therese waited, but the end never came, so she said it herself.

“Flung out of space.”

Then, they were in the car and gone, on their way to Larchmont.

 

~

 

Therese found the envelope a few hours later, sitting on her bed. “Dearest Therese” it said. She opened it, and before she read the first word, already knew its contents. She was right.

 

_Dearest,_

 

_There are no accidents, and they would have found us one way or another. I know that no explanation I offer will satisfy you. Please don’t be angry when I tell you that you seek resolutions and explanations because you are young. But you will understand this one day. And when it happens, I want you to imagine me there to greet you, our lives stretched out ahead of us, a perpetual sunrise. But until then, there must be no contact between us._

_I fear we will always be pursued, and I know that you will always want to fight back. It is an admirable quality. I remember your courage that I hadn’t suspected, and it gives me courage._

_I have much to do, and you, my darling, even more._

_Please believe that I would do anything to see you happy. So, I do the only thing that I can: I release you._

 

Therese crumpled the letter into a ball and threw it away. She wished the aliens had taken her away instead, and wished they would take her away now. She had heard stories of what they did to abductees and hated them for hurting Carol in ways her imagination ran wild with. Still, she wished for the pain from them, rather than the pain from Carol’s letter. The Cigarette Smoking Man’s words echoed in her mind: _“We will always be watching you, Doctor… You’ve made her involved. Sorry.”_

The next day, Therese scoured the Internet for places to live downstate. She thought about the work she was doing at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The director of the project had been needling her to consider working there full-time, but she evaded the subject. Now, she was sure. The skies weren’t as spotless on Long Island as they were upstate, but that didn’t matter. There were always particle accelerators and ion colliders to use instead of telescopes and cameras.

In the evening, she called Carol’s number, but no one answered. She didn’t leave a message. She tried twice more with no success, then retired to bed.

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carol's emotions:
> 
> :\  
> :\  
> :(  
> :o  
> -_-'  
> :\  
> :S  
> :o  
> :(  
> :\  
> :(  
> :|  
> :|  
> :|  
> >:(  
> >:o  
> :'(  
> >:o  
> >:|

Abby drove away from Therese’s house. When they reached New York State Route 224, Abby spoke:

“So do you wanna talk about it?”

Carol turned her head to look at the swath of trees they passed.

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Abby said.

Carol opened the glove compartment and took out Abby’s cigarette case. She said, “Want one?” Abby shook her head. Carol took one for herself and lit it, then put back the lighter and case. She fidgeted in her seat.

“Therese told me everything - if you’re wondering where to start. Though, after she came back to New York, we didn’t keep in touch very well. I gathered she wanted to be left alone.”

“What did she tell you, exactly?”

“That you were abducted by aliens in a spaceship. That one of them was impersonating her. She stayed in Nebraska for almost three weeks looking for you, driving around for hours. I couldn’t believe what she was telling me. But she believed it so strongly. And, well, I guess anything’s possible,” Abby said.

“Abby, I can’t begin to describe what was done to me.” All of the incisions, all of the lasers and tests, and poking and prodding, everything replayed in Carol’s mind at hyperspeed, like a fast-forwarding VHS tape. She took a drag from the cigarette and looked away at the scenery.

“I’m glad you’re home,” Abby said. “It’s good to have you back.”

“Is it? Now I’m going back to Harge, to — to _this_ ,” Carol said, and gestured outside at nothing in particular. “Abby, I can’t _live_ like this.”

“I know,” she said.

A beat. Then:

“I think you should know that Harge stopped by while the two of you were away.”

“Oh, God. What for?”

“He showed up at night, wouldn’t stop pounding on my door. He was convinced I was hiding you away like some sort of attic squirrel or something,” she laughed. “‘That’s impossible, because she’s not at home and she’s not with me, so she must be with you!’” Abby imitated his deeper voice and puffed out her chest.

“Good grief,” Carol said. “Was he drunk?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Did he do anything else?

“No, he left after I told him you weren’t here. He shouted all the usual things: that you’re his responsibility, blah blah blah. I told him you weren’t with me and I shut the door and he left.”

Carol groaned and said, “I’m sorry you had to deal with that. I’ll be glad when this divorce is finally behind us.”

When they were on Route 17, Carol spotted a black, four-door sedan a little bit in the distance behind them.

“Abby! Change lanes,” she said.

“Why?”

“I want to see who’s driving that car back there. The black one.”

She followed Carol’s instructions, and slowed their pace so the other car would pass them on the left. When it drew near, Carol leaned over and strained to glimpse the driver. It was an average-looking middle-aged man with dark hair wearing a t-shirt. He didn’t even look over at them. He just kept going on the road.

“What was that about?” Abby said.

“It wasn’t him,” Carol said, more to herself. She leaned back into the seat and exhaled deeply, closing her eyes.

“Who did you think it would be?”

Carol opened her eyes and said, “The man who followed us around. Who has something to do with what happened to me. I thought he was following me again.”

“Well, I guess it’s a good thing that it wasn’t him, then. Do you think he would still be following you now? Have you gone to the police about it?”

Carol scoffed. “The _FBI_ is aware of him and can’t do anything about it. I doubt very much the town police will fare any better.”

Abby frowned, and didn’t say anything. Carol spoke again:

“I’m sorry, Abby. I don’t mean to be so miserable.”

“Carol, you’ve been through a lot. It’s okay; I understand.”

“Everything is wrong. I don’t feel like I belong here anymore,” Carol said. “But I don’t know where else I _would_ belong. I’m not making any sense, am I?”

“How can I help you through this?” Abby said.

She pulled over to the side of the road and looked at Carol directly. Carol shook her head and sighed. She didn’t look back at Abby, but instead, focused on the forest of trees on their right.

“I don’t know,” she said, and covered her closed eyes with her hand.

Abby squeezed Carol’s other hand briefly and said, “You will make it through this.” She checked on her left for passing cars and when it was safe to do so, merged back into the flow of traffic.

“Thank you,” Carol said.

 

~

 

Carol wasn’t sure if she was relieved or anxious that she returned to an empty house. Everything felt like an itch she couldn’t scratch; an itch on the underside of her skin, residing out-of-reach inside of her limbs or chest. She would light a cigarette in one room of the house and pace around to the other end where she’d light a fresh one after finishing the first one. The mail was in a thick stack on the kitchen counter and she struggled to understand the words printed on them: she would read who they were from and by the end of the address, she had forgotten the beginning parts and would start reading the address again, only to have the process repeat. Time felt horrifically slow and fast simultaneously. She would open a cupboard or closet like one opens the refrigerator when they’re bored and hungry, hoping for an idea of what to eat just by looking at the food — she would stare distractedly into the cupboard or closet waiting for an idea of what to do with herself, then just close it again, empty and confused. She knew whose company she wished she was in, but that was no longer an option.

The phone rang. It startled her, and she clutched her chest as she jumped to press her back against the nearest wall. Carol let it go to the answering machine, but no message was left. It wasn’t Harge; he would have left an angry message. Carol had a feeling she knew who it was and she squeezed her eyes shut, as if she could will Therese to not call her again, to magically make Therese forget all about her existence.

She went upstairs to dress for bed. She stood in front of her vanity mirror and watched herself with a detached perspective unbuttoning her blouse. This body was her body, she knew, but it didn’t feel like her body anymore; instead, it felt heavy and like each limb was disconnected from the core. She felt like a walking skeleton trapped inside a thick container of flesh and meat, rather than a living, breathing, human being. Carol lightly brushed her fingertips across the bright white scar than ran vertically down her sternum. She couldn’t remember if they had ever implanted anything in her. Maybe they did and they erased her memory of it. Maybe it never happened at all. But the scar was proof that it did all happen. She stood there watching herself touch the scar in a trance, both calm and unfeeling, and panicked, feeling everything. How unnerving it was to feel both ends of a spectrum simultaneously, she thought, as if she were a doctor or psychologist observing a patient in a clinical, rational manner.

Then, like it was a brand-new thought to her, she remembered she hadn’t finished dressing for bed. She removed her clothing as quickly as possible and tried not to look at her body in the mirror. Her pajamas on, she slid under the blankets, but didn’t turn off the bedside lamp. The light wouldn’t deter them from coming back, if they ever did come back, but she had been stripped of whatever confidence she had managed to build up before the trip. It was a horrible rebirth, to be as exposed and vulnerable as Carol now was, and feared she might always be from now on.

From across the room, the telephone rang. It was the third time this evening and she ignored them all. Carol wept but did not move. _It will be over soon._ Indeed it was, but Carol’s tears still streamed down her cheeks.

Eventually, sleep took over. Carol dreamt of nothing but an unending void of darkness. There were no characters, no storyline, nothing at all in the dreams. No fear, no emotions. Just nothing.

 

~

 

In the morning, she stayed in bed as long as she could. It wasn’t a conscious decision. Getting out of bed just felt impossible.

Carol’s thoughts meandered while she stared blankly across the room. She remembered staying in the hospital when she was twelve, struggling to breathe because of the pneumonia. Her fever was stubborn and wouldn’t break. She remembered the IV drip in her arm, the oxygen to help her breathe. The confusion and deliriousness. It was only after she began to improve that she found out how close she came to not leaving the hospital at all. Her mother watched her with eagle eyes for the rest of her childhood after the incident.

“It was a miracle you survived! You can’t go out there by yourself. I’m not letting you throw away your second chance,” her mother often said. Carol watched her friends ride their bikes around town by themselves or when they got older, take weekend trips to Connecticut or Long Island. They were allowed to hop on the train to Manhattan for the day as long as they called when they were leaving to come home. Carol learned to be frightened of the world.

She remembered the freedom she felt attending William and Mary, finally getting away from all of the rules and restrictions. Throwing herself in her studies, learning about classical and modern art and architecture, practicing still-lifes in the studio for hours, and her work in the senior art gallery her final year. How relieved her parents were when she introduced them to Harge, an upperclassman studying business, of course. He had reminded her of her father back then: contemplative, unyielding, and strong. He seemed so cool, calm, collected, when he asked Carol out on their first date, as if there would be no other answer but yes. As they grew older, his smooth demeanor eroded, like a rock unevenly weathered by the elements so it became battered and sharp. He exploded more frequently, dug his heels in even more than he used to. She thought about Therese and her stubbornness and strong will just like Harge’s, but still young and untainted by years of disappointment and regret.

Carol closed her eyes and forced her thoughts to go elsewhere, anywhere but where they had ended up. The Bounty Hunter’s words rattled in her brain: _“Do you remember getting sick, in 1973? We were there even then. Are you sure your daughter’s even_ _ **yours**_ _?”_

What was that supposed to mean? How could Rindy _not_ be hers? It seemed fairly obvious to Carol that a child she carried herself for nine months and gave birth to was most assuredly her own flesh and blood. She rolled over and stared at this half of the room now. It wasn’t blankly like before, but with preoccupation and fighting back fear. _I wasn’t taken randomly._ And she felt that the answers were somewhere in D.C. with a certain pair of federal agents, and that the answers were also in the sky, and neither of those were places she wanted to, or felt able to go to. She sat up in bed with irritation and resolve.

 

~

 

Carol consumed herself in her newfound research, a welcome distraction from the divorce proceedings and the end of summer drawing near.

“Dammit, Carol. I wish you would just stop this nonsense,” Harge had said at the last meeting.

“Settle down,” his lawyer had said quietly.

“Stop what nonsense, Harge? It’s not a mental disorder! And it hasn’t been one since the ‘70s. I am more than capable of caring for my own child!” Carol said.

Harge glared at Carol in the same way he used to stare down anyone who he found out was giving her a hard time back in their college days. A look once only reserved for their enemies was turned toward her instead.

“Why don’t we take a break?” her lawyer said.

At the suggestion, Carol had nearly made a run for the ladies’ room. She hid in a stall and quietly cried. The stall shielded her from the world, but it was also too confining. Its smallness had been both comforting and distressing.

On the way back towards the conference room, her lawyer asked how she was feeling. She lifted her hands up and shook her head with a sarcastic “what do you expect?” look.

“Hang in there,” he said.

Harge said he had proof that Carol was not the better of the two parents for Rindy. She launched into a counterargument against his conservatism and religiosity, but he interrupted her.

“That’s not all the proof I have,” he said. And this had churned her stomach, because she didn’t know what he meant by that, except nothing good.

In the library, she read about the Montauk Project, Area 51, Roswell, and anything that appeared to be evenly remotely connected to the subject of government conspiracies or abductions. So much of it sounded like garbage and entirely unsubstantiated, and many times she got up from the computer or stack of books to pace around the library before sitting back down to read some more. One day, she came across something entitled _The Magic Bullet Newsletter_. It talked about events and phenomena that she had experienced with a chilling accuracy, and she took a chance on sending the writers an email, explaining everything with the Cigarette Smoking Man, the Bounty Hunter, and the abduction.

The next day, after spending hours again at the library, she spotted someone sitting in a dark car across the street from the library’s entrance. The young man was good-looking with short, dark hair, and he was dressed in a suit and tie. He turned his attention away from Carol, as if he noticed her noticing him. She walked up to his car and rapped her knuckles on window. He looked up from pouring himself a cup of coffee from his thermos and rolled down the window.

“Can I help you, ma’am?”

“Just what do you think you’re playing at?” Carol said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t play stupid with me. Whatever you think you have on me, you don’t. You don’t know _anything_.”

“I don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about.”

Carol sneered and tried to see if he had any photography or recording equipment peeking out from under a seat or hastily tucked away anywhere.

“Sure you don’t. You think you’re watching _me_? You’ve got it all wrong. Because I’m watching _you_.” She pointed her finger at him, then walked towards her car. Every so often, she would look back to check on him, but still he remained just as he had been when she confronted him. As satisfied as she could be in this moment, she drove away towards home. He watched her, and when she reached the end of the road, he pulled out his cell phone.

“She knows,” he said.

 


End file.
